(^^iryo^'^ 


THE  EPISTLES  TO 
THE   SEVEN   CHURCHES. 


A  POPULAR  EXPOSITION 


THE  EPISTLES 


SEVEN  CHURCHES  OF  ASIA, 


E.   H.   PLUMPTRE,   D.D., 


VICAR   OF   BICKLEY  ; 


NGS   COLLEGE,    LONDON 


E.    P.    BUTTON    &    CO. 

713,   BROADWAY. 


MDCCCLXXVIII. 


(Al/  rights  reserved.) 


CONTENTS 


I. 

INTRODUCTORY     I 

II. 
THE   EPISTLE   TO    EPHESUS  53 

III. 
THE    EPISTLE   TO   SMYRNA 87 

IV. 

THE    EPISTLE   TO   PERGAMOS I05 

V. 
THE   EPISTLE   TO   THYATIRA         1 33 

VI. 
THE    EPISTLE   TO   SARDIS 155 

VIL 
THE   EPISTLE   TO   PHILADELPHIA  173 

VIII. 
THE    EPISTLE    TO    LAODICEA  193 


I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 


I. 

I  DO  not  purpose  entering  on  a  discussion 
of  the  authorship  or  date  of  the  Revelation 
which  claims  to  have  been  written  by  John  the 
Divine  (6  6eo\6jo<i).^  I  accept  the  all  but 
unanimous  tradition  of  the  writers  of  the  ante- 
Nicene    Church   that  it  was  the   work   of   the 

^  The  title  thus  given  to  the  Apostle  claims,  however,  a  few- 
words  of  notice.  The  view  commonly  taken  by  Patristic  writers 
and  modern  critics  that  it  represents  his  special  character  as  the 
special  witness  of  the  incarnation  of  the  divine  Logos  ("the 
IVord  was  God")  is,  of  course,  probable  enough  in  itself  and 
has  much  to  recommend  it.  It  should  not  be  forgotten,  how- 
ever, that  it  may  have  had  a  local  starting-point.  The  researches 
of  Mr.  Wood  {Ephesiis,  Theatre,  p.  23)  have  brought  to  light  in- 
scriptions connected  withthe  great  Temple  of  Artemis  which  shew 
that  this  very  title  was  given  to  the  highest  order  of  priests  con- 
secrated to  the  service  of  the  goddess.  They  were  pre-eminently 
the  theologi,  or  divines,  who  unfolded  to  the  worshippers  the 
inner  meaning  of  her  culttis.  The  name  may  therefore  have 
been  at  first  the  embodiment  of  the  thought  that  the  Evangelist 
occupied  in  the  service  of  the  true  God  the  position  which  they 
occupied  in  that  of  the  Ephesian  goddess,  that  he  was  the  witness 
of  the  Truth,  of  which  her  worship  was  the  counterfeit,  and  could 
tell  men  how  and  through  whom  the  Eternal  had  manifested 
Himself  both  through  nature  and  among  men. 


2  Introductory, 

beloved  disciple,  partly  because  the  tradition  in 
this  case  is  sufficiently  early  (a.d.  170)  to  hav.e 
something  of  an  historical  value  (I  refer  espe- 
cially to  the  Muratorian  Fragment),  partly  on 
account  of  the  internal  coincidences  of  thought 
and  language,  on  which  I  have  dwelt  elsewhere.^ 
I  hold,  with  not  a  few  recent  commentators,  that 
it  belongs  to  a  date  earlier  than  that  of  the  per- 
secution under  Domitian,  to  which  Patristic 
tradition  for  the  most  part  assigned  it ;  that  it 
was  written  certainly  before  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  probably  during  a  time  in  which  the 
Asiatic  Churches  were  suffering  from  the  perse- 
cution of  which  we  have  traces,  as  affecting  that 
portion  of  the  Empire,  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles 
(2  Tim.  i.  8,  15  ;  ii.  3  ;  iii.  12),  yet  more  defin- 
itely in  the  First  Epistle  of  St.  Peter  (i.  6,  7  ; 
ii.  12  ;  iii.  14-17  ;  iv.  i,  12-19),  and  in  that 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  which  I  have  been  led 
to  assign  to  the  same  period.^  The  Neronian 
persecution  was  obviously  more  than  the  effect 
of  the  cruelt}^  or  policy  of  an  individual  tyrant. 
It  was  only  possible  through  the  excitement, 
the  suspicion,  the  hatred,  which  pervaded  men's 
minds  in  the  imperial  city  as  they  found  them- 

^  Bible  Educator^   i.  pp.  27,  79. 

^  See  papers  in  the  Expositor  on  "  The  Writings  of  Apollos," 
vol.  i.  pp.  329-348,  409-435- 


Introductory.  3 

selves  face  to  face  with  the  power  and  life  of  the 
new  society  that  bore  the  name  of  Christian  ; 
and  that  hatred  and  suspicion  were  as  certain 
to  be  felt  in  every  city  of  the  Empire  as  in 
Rome  itself. 

About    this   period,    then,    probably    shortly 
after  the  death  of  Nero  (say  circ.  a.d.  68  or  69), 
John,  who  speaks  of  himself — as  Paul  (Phil.  i.  i) 
and  Peter  (2  Pet.  i.  i)  and  James  (James  i.  i) 
had  done  before  him — as  the  servant  i^ovKo^^^  i.e. 
the  slave)  of  Jesus  Christ,  dropping  the  name 
of  apostle  where  there  was  no  pressing  necessity 
to  assert  his  authority  as  such,  wrote  the  book 
to  which  he  prefixed  the  title  of  Revelation.   Ex- 
ceptional as  that  title  now  is  among  the  Books 
of  the  New  Testament,  we  must  remember  that 
neither  the  word  nor  the  thing  were  exceptional 
in  the  apostolic  age.     It  was  by  *'  visions   and 
revelations   of  the    Lord"  (2    Cor.   xii.    i)  that 
each  Apostle  was  carried  forward  from  truth  to 
truth  and  received  fresh  insight  into  the  work  he 
had  to  do.     In  this  way  Stephen  had  seen  the 
Son  of  Man  standing  at  the  right  hand  of  God 
(Acts  vii.  55,  56),  and  Peter  had  been  taught 
that  the  gate  of  Eternal  Life  had  been  thrown 
open  to  the  Gentiles  (Acts  x.  11),  and  Paul  had 
been    carried  up  to  the  third  heaven    and   the 
Paradise  of  God  (2  Cor.  xii.  1-4,  7),  and  had 


4  Introductory. 

from  time  to  time  beheld  the  form  of  the  risen 
and  ascended  Christ  (Acts  xxii.  17,  18  ;  ^xviii.  9), 
or  of  some  angel  sent  by  Him  (Acts  xxvii.  23). 
In   this   way   prophets   and  apostles  had  been 
taught  what  till  then  eye  had  not  seen  nor  ear 
heard,   neither   had   it   entered   into   the   heart 
of  man  to  conceive,   (i   Cor.  ii.  9,  10.)     Each 
mystery   of  the  faith  was  imparted  by   a  new 
revelation.     An  apocalypse  extending  to  the  far 
future,  to  the  coming  of  the  Lord,  to  the  signs 
of  its  approach,  is  implied  as  given  to  St.  Paul 
in    2  Thess.  ii.   1-12 ;   in  i  Tim.   iv.  1-3  ;  and 
to    St.  Peter  in    2   Pet.  ii.    10-13.      It   would 
hardly  be  a  paradox  to  say  that  a  state  com- 
monly so  abnormal  as  that  of  trance  or  ecstasy 
was   part   of  the  normal  life   of  the   Apostles 
of  the    Faith.     John,  when    he    addressed   his 
Revelation  to  the  Churches  of  Asia  was  claim- 
ing no  exceptional  privilege.     They  would  not 
be   startled   by  it    as  by  something   altogether 
extraordinary. 

The  writer  describes  himself  further  as  one 
"  who  bare  record  "  {i/juapTvprjae)  "  of  the  Word 
of  God  and  of  the  testimony "  {/uLaprvpLo)  *'  of 
Jesus,  and  of  all  things  which  He  saw"  (i.  2). 
I  cannot  bring  myself  to  confine  the  application 
of  these  words  to  the  contents  of  the  Book  to 
which    they    are   thus    prefixed.     The    Apostle 


Introductory.  5 

had,  for  some  greater  or  less  length  of  time, 
been  working  and  preaching  in  these  Asiatic 
Churches,  and  describes  himself  as  having  done 
a  work  which  they  would  recognise  as  truly  his. 
If  we  accept  the  Fourth  Gospel  as  either  being 
by  St.  John,  or  as,  at  least,  representing  the 
characteristic  features  of  his  teaching,  we  note 
that  the  idea  of  witness,  record,  testimony,  is 
throughout  the  keynote  of  that  teaching.  When 
the  spear  pierced  the  side  of  Jesus,  "  he  that 
saw  it  bare  record,  and  his  record  is  true " 
(John  xix.  35).  He  closed  his  Gospel  with  the 
declaration,  "  This  is  the  disciple  which  testifieth 
of  these  things  and  wrote  these  things  "  (John 
xxi.  24).  I  do  not,  of  course,  assume  that  the 
Gospel  was  written  before  the  Revelation,  but 
I  infer  from  the  prominence  given  to  the  word 
fjuaprvpcd  and  its  cognates,  alike  in  Gospel, 
Revelation,  and  Epistles,^  that  it  had  all  along 
been  characteristic  of  his  oral  teaching,  and 
that  that  teaching  is  referred  to  here.  And, 
assuming  this,  I  cannot  hesitate  to  see  in 
"  the  Word  of  God  "  to  which  he  bore  witness 
more  than  the  spoken  Message  of  the  Gospel. 
He   who   beheld   in   Christ   the  "  Word    made 

^  The  word  **  witness,"  in  its  noun  or  verb  form,  is  foui/l  not 
less  than  seventy-two  times  in  the  writings  ascribed  to  St.  John. 
It  is  pre-eminently  his  characteristic  word. 


6  '  Introductory. 

flesh,"  who,  even  in  the  earHer  stage  of  thought 
to  which  the  Apocalypse  belongs,  saw  Him  who 
was  faithful  and  true,  on  whose  head  were 
many  crowns,  who  was  clothed  with  a  vesture 
dipped  in  blood,  and  whose  name  was  called 
THE  Word  of  God  (Rev.  xix.  11-13),  was  not 
likely  in  his  opening  words  to  use  that  name 
in  any  lower  sense  than  when  he  wrote  after 
wards  that,  "  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word  " 
(John  i.  i),  or  that  the  "Word  of  Life"  was 
that  which  he  had  seen  with  his  eyes,  and  had 
looked  upon,  and  his  hands  had  handled 
(i  John  i.  i). 

And  he  writes  to  the  Seven  Churches  of  Asia. 
What  chain  of  events  brought  the  Apostle  to 
that  region  we  know  not.  The  silence  of  Scrip- 
ture is  nowhere  more  remarkable  than  in 
connection  with  the  period  of  his  life  from  the 
time  of  the  Council  at  Jerusalem  (Gal.  ii.  9) 
to  that  in  which  we  find  him  as  an  exile  in 
Patmos.  All  that  we  can  say  is  that  it  is 
probable  that  the  sacred  charge  of  watching 
over  the  mother  of  his  Lord  kept  him  for  several 
years  in  comparative  seclusion,  and  that  he 
appears  to  have  left  Jerusalem  before  St.  Paul's 
last  visit  there,  and  not  to  have  arrived  at 
Ephesus  when  the  last  extant  Epistle  of  that 
Apostle  was  written  to    Timotheus.     We  can. 


Introductory.  7 

however,  form  a  fairly  full  picture  of  the  state 
of  things  which  he  found  on  his  arrival,  and 
which  probably  had  drawn  him  thither  that 
he  might  fill  up  the  gap  that  had  been  left  by 
the  departure  or  the  death  of  the  two  great 
Teachers  to  whom  these  Churches  had  till  then 
looked  for  guidance.  A  time  of  fiery  persecu- 
tion, of  fierce  outrage,  and  foul  calumnies;  a 
time  also  of  sects  and  schisms,  evil  men  and 
seducers  waxing  worse  and  worse,  deceiving 
and  being  deceived  ;  the  polity  and  discipline 
of  the  Church  thrown  into  confusion  ;  the 
teaching  of  St.  Paul  forgotten,  or,  worse  still, 
exaggerated  and  distorted  ;  the  very  teachers 
and  bishops  of  the  Church  becoming  the  leaders 
of  sects  and  schisms, — this  is  what  we  find 
portrayed  in  the  writings  which  must  have 
preceded  his  arrival  (on  the  hypothesis  which 
I  have  adopted  as  to  the  date  of  the  Apocalypse) 
but  a  few  short  years  or  months.  And  the 
storm  of  persecution  falls  on  him  also,  and  he 
finds  himself  at  Patmos.  The  tone  in  which 
he  speaks  of  himself  as  being  there  "for  the 
sake  of  the  Word  of  God  "  (I  do  not  abandon 
the  higher  sense  even  here)  "  and  of  the 
testimony  of  Jesus  Christ  "  (i.  9)  suggests  the 
thought  that  he  had  been  banished  there  by 
some  judicial   sentence.     Rejecting,  as  unsup- 


8  Introductory. 

ported  by  any  adequate  evidence,  the  tradition 
that  that  sentence  came  from  the  mouth  of 
Domitian,  or  of  any  other  Roman  emperor,  I 
fall  back  upon  an  assumption  which  is  in  the 
nature  of  the  case  far  more  probable,  i.e.  that 
he  had  been  condemned  by  some  local  authority, 
most  probably  by  the  Proconsul  of  Asia,  who 
had  his  seat  at  Ephesus  ;  and  I  find  in  the  com- 
parative leniency  of  the  sentence  as  a  substitute 
for  that  death,  which  fell  on  so  many  believers 
elsewhere,  even  in  the  Asiatic  Churches  (Rev. 
ii.  13),  a  token  of  the  continued  influence  of 
those  who,  like  the  Asiarchs  that  were  friends 
of  Paul,  and  the  town-clerk  of  Ephesus,  were 
so  far  favourable  to  the  Christian  society  as 
to  be  unwilling  to  join  in  violent  measure'.:  for 
its  extirpation.  (Acts  xix.  31,  37.)  There  is  no 
proof,  so  far  as  I  know,  that  Patmos  was  at  's 
period  one  of  the  ordinary  places  of  deportati 
though  it  is  true  that  any  one  of  the  Cyclades 
or  Sporades  might  have  been  chosen  for  this 
purpose,  and  so  far  as  the  Book  now  before  us 
suggests  an  inference  it  points  rather  to  solitary 
exile  and  comparative  freedom.  There  is  no 
trace  of  the  cnstodia  of  a  state  prisoner,  no 
indication  of  chains,  or  of  sentinels  in  guard 
over  him. 

At  such   a   time   the    thoughts   of  the    exile 


Introductory.  9 

would  naturally  turn  to  the  Churches  from 
which  he  was  thus  for  a  time  separated.  He 
would  know  the  excellences,  the  trials,  the  perils 
of  each.  They  would  be  prominent  in  his 
anxieties  and  prayers.  He  would  crave  to 
know  what  were  the  right  words  to  speak  at 
such  a  time  to  his  companions  in  tribulation. 
The  Churches  to  which  he  is  told  to  write  were, 
perhaps,  actually  those  with  which,  and  w^ith 
which  alone,  he  had  been  personally  connected; 
but  it  is  also  possible  that  the  habit  of  his  mind 
was  to  group  whatever  was  presented  to  it  under 
definite  numerical  relations  ;  and  that  the  num- 
ber Seven,  so  full  of  sacred  and  mystic  meaning, 
the  symbol  of  completeness-and  of  calm,  seemed 
to  him  to  include  all  the  chief  types  of  spiritual 
life  with  which  he  had  been  familiar.  Certain 
lS  that  that  number  is  nowhere  more  prominent 
3  clothed  with  mystic  meaning  than  it  is  in 
this  Book.  Over  and  above  the  seven  golden 
candlesticks  and  the  seven  stars  which  corre- 
spond to  the  Seven  Churches,  we  have  the  seven 
lamps  of  fire  (Rev.  iv.  5)  and  the  seven  Spirits 
before  the  Throne  (Rev.  i.  4),  the  seven 
seals  (Rev.  vii.  i)  and  trumpets  (Rev.  viii.  2), 
the  seven  thunders  (Rev.  x.  3)  and  angels 
(Rev.  XV.  i)  and  vials  (Rev.  xv.) ;  the  beast 
with  the  seven  heads  (Rev.  xii.  3),  the  seven 


lO  Introductory, 

mountains  (Rev.  xvii.  9),  and  the  seven  kings 
(Rev.  xvii.  10).  The  seven  Churches  thus 
chosen  were  accordingly  for  him  the  types  and 
representatives  of  the  whole  family  of  God.  It 
may  be  said,  as  our  induction  from  the  seven 
messages  will  shew,  that  there  has  never  been 
a  Christian  community,  flourishing  or  decaying, 
exposed  to  the  dangers  of  persecution  or  pro- 
sperity, that  may  not  find  its  likeness  in  one  or 
other  of  them. 

And  to  these  Churches  he  writes  with  a  salu- 
tation which  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  had  made 
familiar — "  Grace  and  peace'' — and  which,  so  far 
as  we  know,  had  been  used  by  none  before  him. 
Men  felt  that  it  was  truer  and  deeper  than  the 
old  'xalpeiv  of  the  Greeks  in  either  of  its  senses  ; 
more  full  of  meaning  than  the  "  Peace  "  which 
had  been  the  immemorial  greeting  of  the 
Hebrews.  (Luke  x.  5.)  It  brought  with  it  the 
truth  that  ''grace,"  the  favour  of  God,  was 
more  than  joy,  and  was  the  fountain  of  all 
peace ;  it  did  not  suggest,  as  yaipeiv^  like  our 
Farewell,  had  come  to  do,  the  idea  of  parting. 
In  any  case  it  is  interesting  to  note  the  fact 
that  St.  John,  to  whom  both  the  other  greetings 
must  have  been  familiar  in  the  Church  at 
Jerusalem  (Acts  xv.  23,  and  James  i.  i),  throws 
himself  thus  freely  into  Pauline  phraseology. 


Introductory.  1 1 

If  I  mistake  not,  even  this  coincidence,  trivial 
as  it  may  seem,  is  at  least  of  some  weight 
against  the  theory  of  some  recent  critics,^  that 
the  Apocalypse  is  a  polemic  anti  -  Pauline 
treatise.  The  individuality  of  the  writer  asserts 
itself,  however,  in  the  words  that  follow.  It  is 
not,  as  with  St.  Paul,  "  Grace  and  peace  from 
God  our  Father,  and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ," 
but,  ^^ from  him  which  is,  and  which  was,  and 
which  is  to  come,'* — or,  as  the  Greek  has  it, 
with  a  singular  disregard  of  the  technical  rules 
of    grammar  —  airb   rod    6    wv   koI   6   rjv  koX   6 

ip')(^6/jL€V0<^. 

It  would  be  idle  to  ascribe  this  departure 
from  usage  to  any  ignorance  of  those  rules,  and 
to  infer  from  it  the  early  date  of  the  Apocalypse, 
as  written  before  the  Galilean  disciple  had 
become  familiar  with  the  language  in  which 
he  wrote.  It  is  clear  that  the  Apostle  looked 
on  the  Divine  Name,  though  it  took  the  form 
of  words  that  admitted  of  inflection,  as  having 
a  character  as  sacred  as  that  of  Jehovah  or 
Adonai  had  been  in  his  mother  tongue,  not 
losing  its  majesty  by  changing  its  unapproach- 
able loftiness.  The  LXX.  translation  of 
Exod.  iii.  14  had  made  'O  '/2N  ("  He  that  is  ") 

^  I  may  name  M.  Renan  as  the  ablest  and  most  distinguished 
advocate  of  this  theory,  in  his  "  L'Antechrist, "  pp.  xxix.  34, 


1 2  Introductory . 

the    Greek   equivalent   for  the    I    AM    of    our 
English     Bible;      and     that     was,     therefore, 
naturally  the  first  word  in  the  strange  compound 
which    the    Apostle    formed     to    express    the 
Eternity  of  God.     But  that  Eternity,  that  Ever- 
present  Being,  might  be  thought  of  as  stretching 
into  the  infinite  past  and  the  infinite  future,  and 
two    other   names   were   wanted.      The    Greek 
verb  of  being,  however,  had  no  past  participle, 
and   therefore    he    had   to   fall   back    upon   its 
imperfect  tense,  "  the  He  was."     It  might,  of 
course,  have  supplied  him  with  a  future  6  eVo- 
fxevo^,  but  from  that  word  he  turned  aside,  partly, 
it  may  be,  because  it  would  have  suggested  the 
thought  of  coming  into   being   at    some   future 
point   of  time,  partly  because  Hebrew  phrase- 
ology had  led  him  to  find  the  thought  of  futurity 
in    the   verb    "to    come."      And    so    we   have 
6  ipxofJievo^,  "  he  that   cometh."     It  is  possible 
that    the   familiar    "he   that   cometh"   of  the 
Gospels  {e.g.  Matt.  xi.  3 ;    xxiii.    39),    applied 
by  the  Jews  of  Galilee  and  Jerusalem  to  the 
expected  Christ,  might  have  helped  to  determine 
the  choice  of  that  word ;  but  the  distinct  men- 
tion  of  the  Christ    himself  in  the  next  verse 
forbids  us  to  refer  the  word  even  remotely  to 
the  thought  of  his  second  Coming  to  judge  the 
world.     The  one  idea  which  the  Apostle  strove 


Introductory.  1 3 

to  embody  was  that  of  the  Eternal  Now,  as 
contemplated  in  the  time  before  the  world,  and 
as  it  shall  be  when  God  shall  once  more  be  all 
in  all.  If  St.  John  uses  a  familiar  phrase,  it  is 
as  with  a  significance  altogether  new.  It  is 
scarcely  possible  to  think  of  this  Divine 
Name  without  remembering  that  inscription  so 
strangely  like,  so  yet  more  strangely  different, 
of  which  Plutarch  speaks  as  being  in  the  Temple 
of  Athene  (the  Egyptian  Isis)  at  Sais  :  "  I  am 
all  that  has  come  into  being,  and  that  which  is, 
and  that  which  shall  be  "  {"Eyco  elfjn  irav  to 
jeyovo^,  Kol  ov,  koI  iao/xevov),  "  and  no  man  hath 
lifted  my  veil."  Alike  in  contemplating  the 
mystery  of  existence  as  spreading  through  the 
infinite  past  into  the  infinite  future,  they  differ 
in  all  else  as  widely  as  any  two  creeds  that  the 
world  has  ever  seen.  The  one,  in  its  identifica- 
tion of  God  with  the  universe,  in  its  postulate 
of  an  "  Ever-becoming  "  instead  of  an  Eternal 
Being,  in  the  absolute  exclusion  of  personality 
by  its  use  of  the  neuter  form  of  the  participles ; 
in  its  assertion  that  the  Deity  thus  described  is 
the  Unknown  and  Unknowable  is  the  despairing 
creed  of  the  Pantheist.  The  other  is  the  pro- 
clamation of  the  name  of  One  who  is  not  only 
the  I  AM  THAT  I  AM  (Exod.  iii.  14),  but  the 
Everlasting  Father,  revealing  Himself  through 


1 4  Introdiictojy. 

his  Son.  Is  it  altogether  too  bold  a  conjecture 
to  suggest  that  the  contrast  between  the  two 
formulae  was  deliberate  and  designed  ?  The 
inscription  at  Sais  was,  we  know,  from  the  way 
in  which  Plutarch  speaks  of  it,  at  this  very 
time  one  of  the  familiar  topics  of  many  religious 
inquirers.  Was  it  likely  to  have  been  unknown 
to  the  Alexandrian  Jew  who  had  recently  been 
at  Ephesus,  mighty  in  the  Scriptures,  and  not 
unversed,  as  a  scholar  of  Philo,  in  the  lore  of 
Heathenism  ?  Is  not  the  contrast  between  the 
6  wv  and  the  m-av  to  yeyovo';  identical  in  character 
with  that  so  sharply  drawn  in  the  prologue  to 
St.  John's  Gospel,  between  the  self-same  verbs, 
"He  was''  (tjv)  "in  the  beginning  with  God," 
and  "All  things  were  made'''  {ijevero)  "by  him." 
(John  i.  2,  3)'. 

In  the  next  words  we  have  a  yet  more 
marked  individuality.  St.  Paul  nowhere  joins 
the  Spirit  with  the  Father  and  the  Son  in  the 
opening  salutation  of  his  Epistles.  The  near- 
est approach  to  such  a  combination  is  found 
in  the  well-known  words  of  blessing  of  2  Cor. 
xiii.  13,  "  The  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
and  the  love  of  God,  and  the  fellowship  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  be  with  you  all."  The  use  of  the 
three  Names,  however,  in  the  formula  for  Gen- 
tile baptism  (Matt,  xxviii.   19),  which  by  this 


Introdtidory.  1 5 

time  must,  to  a  large  extent,  have  superseded 
the  earlier  or  Jewish  form,  ''  In  the  name  of  the 
Lord  Jesus"  (Acts  ii.  38;  viii.  16;  xviii.  8),  must 
have  made  it  natural  to  use  them  in  benedic- 
tions, as  they  were  shortly  afterwards  used  in 
doxologies ;  and  we  may  add  that  the  order  in 
which  the  Names  were  to  be  used  was  shewn, 
by  St.  Paul's  example  in  the  words  just  cited, 
to  be  a  variable  one.  We  are  startled,  how- 
ever, by  a  yet  greater  variation.  He  speaks  not 
of  the  one  Holy  Spirit,  but  of  ''  the  Seven 
Spirits  which  are  before  the  Throne y  Why, 
we  ask,  should  he,  who  so  distinctly  records 
afterwards,  and  must  even  now  have  remem- 
bered, the  teaching  of  the  Lord  Jesus  as  to 
the  One  Spirit,  the  Paraclete,  the  Comforter, 
bring  in  here  the  idea  of  plurality  ?  The 
answer  is  to  be  found,  in  part,  in  the  nature 
of  the  visions  which  he  proceeds  to  record. 
He  had  seen  "  the  seven  lamps  of  fire  burning 
before  the  Throne  "  (iv.  5),  and  the  seven  eyes 
of  the  Lamb  (v.  6),  and  had  learnt  to  see  in 
each  of  these  the  symbol  of  the  Seven  Spirits 
of  God,  as  representing  in  their  completeness 
all  gifts  of  illumination  and  insight  that  are 
possessed  by  God,  and  are  communicated  to 
man.  That  imagery  rested  on  the  older  sym- 
bolism   of  a  prophet   whom  the  writer   of  the 


1 6  Introdudojy, 

Revelation  seems  to  have  studied  devoutly.  In 
the  visions  of  Zechariah  also  there  had  been 
seen  the  seven  lamps,  or  branches  of  the  one 
lamp  (Zech.  ii.  2),  the  seven  Eyes  of  God 
(Zech.  ii.  9;  iii.  10),  as  symbols  of  his  eter- 
nal Light  and  all-embracing  Knowledge.  But 
the  genesis  of  the  symbol  carries  us  yet  higher. 
In  the  passage  in  Isaiah  (xi.  2)  which  had 
most  impressed  on  men  the  thought  that  the 
Messianic  King  was  to  be  filled  by  the  Spirit, 
there  were  found  numerically  seven  spiritual 
gifts,  each  described  as  being  an  attribute  ot 
the  One  Spirit  of  the  Lord.  As  an  influence 
nearer  to  the  Apostle's  own  time,  and  traceably 
operating  in  other  instances  (as,  e.g.,  in  that  of 
the  Logos)  on  his  thoughts  and  phraseology,  we 
may  note  the  fact  that  Philo  also  speaks  of  the 
number  seven  in  its  mystical  import  as  identical 
with  unity,  as  unity  developed  in  diversity,  and 
yet  remaining  one.^  The  Seven  Spirits  were, 
therefore,  under  such  conditions  of  thought,  the 
fit  symbols  of  the  diversities  of  gifts  bestowed 
by  the  one  and  self-same  Spirit,  dividing  to 
every  man  severally  as  He  wills,  (i  Cor.  xii.  11.) 
It  was  to  be  expected  that  one  who  had  first 
learnt  to  know  God  in  Christ,  the  Father 
through  the  Son,  should  reserve  the  fulness  of 

'  Philo,  Bohn's  Translation,  i.  p.  145. 


Introductory.  1 7 

his  thoughts  and  speech  for  Him  whom  he  had 
thus  known  and  loved.  And  the  words  in 
which  his  thoughts  find  utterance  are  every 
way  characteristic.  For  him  the  first  great 
attribute  which  attaches  to  the  name  of  Christ 
is  that  of  "  the  faithful  witness'^  That  was 
the  thought  which  had  been  prominent  in  the 
personal  teaching  of  his  Lord  as  recorded  in 
his  Gospel.  He  had  come  into  the  world  to 
bear  witness  to  the  truth.  (John  xviii.  37.) 
He  testified  that  which  he  had  seen  and  heard. 
(John  iii.  11,  32.)  Though  in  one  sense  He 
did  not  testify  of  Himself,  but  of  the  Father, 
yet  the  works  which  the  Father  had  given  Him 
to  do  bore  their  witness  of  Him.  (John  v.  36.) 
But  this  thought  also  attached  itself  to  divine 
words  of  earlier  date.  In  the  very  prophecy 
which,  as  speaking  of  the  "  sure  mercies  of 
David,"  had  come  to  be  looked  on  as  essen- 
tially Messianic  (Acts  xiii.  34),  as  the  sequel  to 
the  invitation,  "  Ho,  every  one  that  thirsteth, 
come  ye  to  the  waters,"  which  is  quoted  by  St. 
John  himself  in  this  very  Book  (Rev.  xxi.  6  ; 
xxii.  17),  we  find  the  character  of  the  coming 
Christ  portrayed  as  one  who  is  to  be  given  as 
"a  witness  to  the  people"  (Isaiah  Iv.  4).  In 
the  Psalm,  which  had  in  like  manner  acquired 
a  like  significance,  the  reign  of  the  future  King 
3 


1 8  Introductory. 

was  described  as  that  of  one  who  should  be  as 
the  "faithful  witness''  in  heaven  (Psa.  Ixxxix.  38); 
and  if  those  words  referred,  as  they  have  been 
thought  to  do,  to  the  "bow  in  the  cloud"  as 
being,  like  the  moon  in  her  vicissitudes  and 
her  sameness,  the  ever-recurring  token  of  the 
stability  of  the  divine  promise,  then  "the  rain- 
bov^  round  about  the  Throne,  in  sight  like  unto 
an  emerald,"  of  Rev.  iv.  3,  may  well  have  re- 
called the  very  words  (6  /xaprv^;  6  'jnaro^  in  the 
LXX.  Version)  which  had  been  used  of  it  by  the 
Psalmist.  But  the  Christ  is  also  "  the  first 
begotten  from  the  dead  and  the  Prince  of  the  kings 
of  the  earth.''  The  reference  which  we  have  just 
traced  to  the  great  Messianic  Psalm  explains  in 
part  these  words  also.  If  that  Psalm  had  been 
present  in  its  completeness  to  the  writer's 
memory,  he  would  find  there  that  it  was  said  of 
the  divinely-appointed  King,  "  I  will  make  him 
my  first-born"  (tt/jwtoto/co?,  LXX.),  "higher  ' 
than  the  kings  of  the  earth."  More  noticeable 
still  is  the  fact  that  the  very  words  now  used 
by  St.  John  had  been  used  before  by  St.  Paul 
(Col.  i.  18),  and  that  we  must  therefore  infer 
either  that  the  name    had   come,   through  the 

'  The  Hebrew  for  "higher"  is  Elion,  the  word  used  for  the 
"  Most  High "  of  the  divine  name,  so  prominent  in  many 
passages  Loth  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament. 


hitrodudory.  •  1 9 

teaching  of  that  Apostle,  to  be  familiar  to  all 
the  Asiatic  Churches,  or  that  the  Disciple,  who 
has  been  sometimes  thought  of  as  representing 
a  different  section  of  the  Church  and  a  different 
phase  of  teaching,  deliberately  adopted  a  title 
which  St.  Paul  had  used  before  him.  But  it 
must  be  remembered  also  that  to  him  the  words 
came  with  a  special  significance  and  power. 
He  had  seen  his  Lord  after  He  was  risen.  He 
had  heard  the  words,  "  All  power  is  given  unto 
me  in  heaven  and  earth  "  (Matt,  xxviii.  18). 
He  had  witnessed  the  great  proof  of  that  claim 
of  sovereignty  in  the  Ascension  into  heaven. 
And  so  his  whole  view  of  the  world  and  its 
order  had  been  changed.  Above  all  emperors 
and  kings,  above  all  armies  and  multitudes,  he 
thought  of  the  Crucified  as  ruling  and  directing 
the  course  of  history,  and  certain  in  his  own 
due  time  to  manifest  his  sovereignty. 

In  this  last  clause  of  the  opening  words  of 
salutation  the  Apostle  had  been  as  regardless 
of  the  technical  rules  of  language  as  he  had 
been  in  the  first.  Here  also  the  epithets  stand, 
not  in  the  genitive,  as  in  apposition  with  the 
name  of  Christ,  but  in  their  unimpaired  ma- 
jesty, in  the  nominative.  But  that  salutation 
is  hardly  ended  before,  with  the  speech  of  one 
who  writes  as  in  the  ecstasy  of  adoration,  he 

3* 


20  Introductory, 

passes  from  it  to  a  doxology.  And  the  doxology 
thus  uttered  is  marked  by  some  special  charac- 
teristics. It  is  not,  as  those  of  St.  Paul  for  the 
most  part  are,  addressed  to  the  Father  only,  or 
to  the  Father  through  the  Son,  but  directly  and 
emphatically  to  Jesus  Christ.  Knowing,  as  we 
do,  the  horror  with  which  every  devout  Israelite 
shrank  from  ascribing  Divine  Glory  to  any  but 
the  Divine  Being,  we  cannot  but  see  in  this 
the  recognition  that  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the 
first-begotten  from  the  dead,  was  also  one  with 
the  Father;  that  to  Him,  no  less  than  to  the 
Eternal,  belonged  all  *'  glory  and  might"  forever 
and  ever.  If  there  are  still  those  who  contend 
that  prayer  and  praise  and  adoration  were  not 
offered  by  the  Apostolic  Church  to  the  Person 
of  the  Son,  this  takes  its  place  among  the 
foremost  witnesses  against  their  error.  But 
the  substance  of  the  doxology  is  even  more  re- 
markable. The  preceding  words  had  spoken 
of  the  glory  of  the  Christ  in  His  own  essential 
majesty.  These  tell  of  the  special  relation  in 
which  He  stood  to  the  spiritual  life  of  the 
Apostle  who  wrote,  and  to  all  his  fellow- 
believers:  ''To  him  that  loveth  ws "  (I  follow 
the  better-supported  reading,  which  gives  the 
present,  not  the  past),  ''and  washed  us''  (I  see 
no    adequate  reason   for   preferring  the  reading 


Introductory.  2 1 

*' and  freed  us")  ^^  with  his  own  blood.''  We 
need  scarcely  dwell  on  the  thought  which  had 
impressed  itself  upon  the  mind  of  the  Disciple 
that  the  Lord,  who  had  loved  him  with  so 
deep  and  personal  an  affection  upon  earth,  w^as 
still  loving  him,  and  loving  others  with  an 
equal  love,  now  that  He  was  in  heaven. 
There  is  a  deeper  interest  in  the  clause  which 
speaks  of  the  special  act  of  which  he  thought 
as  manifesting  that  love.  It  tells  us,  if  I  mis- 
take not,  that  he  had  entered  now  into  the  full 
meaning  of  words  that  had  once  been  dark  and 
dim  to  him.  We  can  hardly  suppose  that  the 
hard  saying,  "  He  that  is  washed  needeth  not 
save  to  wash  his  feet,  but  is  clean  every  whit  " 
(John  xiii.  10),  had  been  clear  at  the  time  to 
those  who  heard  it.  Who  was  to  give  them 
that  entire  cleansing  ?  How  were  they  to 
maintain  their  purity  by  that  daily  washing  of 
the  feet  ?  The  words  came,  we  may  believe, 
with  a  new  force  to  the  mind  of  the  disciple 
who  records  them,  when  he  stood  by  the  Cross 
and  saw  the  water  and  the  blood  flow  from  the 
pierced  side  of  Him  who  hung  there.  How 
deep  the  impression  of  that  moment  was  we 
see  in  the  reference  to  it  that  follows  imme- 
diately upon  this.  What  we  are  now  con- 
cerned with  is  the  consciousness  that  then  or 


22  Introductory. 

afterwards  it  became  clear  within  him  that  the 
Love  which  was  consummated  in  that  supreme 
act  of  sacrifice,  the  love  which  then  seemed 
that  of  a  man  who  "  lays  down  his  life  for  his 
friends "  (John  xv.  13),  but  was  afterwards 
seen  to  be  that  of  one  who  was  content  to  die 
even  for  his  foes  (Rom.  v.  8,  10),  had  a  power, 
which  nothing  else  could  have,  to  kindle  a  new 
love  in  his  own  heart  also  ;  and  so,  through  the 
power  of  that  new  affection,  to  purify  him  from 
the  taint  of  evil  and  from  the  close-clinging 
impurity  of  his  lower  selfish  nature.  Here 
was  "  the  fountain  opened  for  sin  and  for  un- 
cleanness  "  (Zech.  xiii.  i),  in  which  the  stains 
of  the  past  life  could  be  washed  away.  We 
are  so  familiar  in  hymns  and  sermons  with  the 
words  and  phrases  which  have  flowed  from  this 
as  their  source,  that  for  the  most  part  we 
hardly  care  to  trace  their  genesis  and  meaning ; 
but  the  process  of  thought  and  feeling  which 
I.  have  ventured  to  .indicate  seems  the  only 
legitimate  explanation  of  the  association  of 
ideas,  at  first  apparently  so  incompatible  as 
are  those  of  cleansing  and  of  blood,  which  we 
find  thus  brought  together.  The  two  were  at 
any  rate  linked  indissolubly  in  the  mind  of  the 
Apostle.  He  saw  in  "the  blood  of  Christ  "  that 
which  ''  cleanseth  from   all  sin  "  (i  John  i.  7). 


Introductory.  2  3 

The  multitude  of  those  whom  he  saw  in  vision 
"arrayed  in  white  robes"  had  "washed  their 
robes  and  made  them  white  in  the  blood  of  the 
Lamb  "  (Rev.  vii.  13,  14). 

But  the  train  of  thought  thus  originated  led 
on  in  natural,  or,  more  truly,  perhaps,  spiritual, 
sequence  to  another.  Once  before,  as  by  some 
mystic  embodiment  of  the  great  idea,  or  dim 
foreshadowing  of  the  great  fact,  blood  had  been 
received  as  the  symbol  of  purification.  The 
Tabernacle  and  the  vessels  of  the  ministry  had 
been  sprinkled  with  it.  In  the  bold  language 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  "  almost  all 
things  are  by  the  law  purified  with  blood"  (ix.  21). 
But  the  special  cardinal  instance  of  its  use  had 
been  when  Aaron  and  his  sons  had  been  conse- 
crated to  their  priestly  office.  The  two  ideas, 
of  being  cleansed  with  blood  and  of  entering 
on  a  priest's  work,  were  accordingly  closely 
linked  together.  But  in  that  baptism  of  blood 
of  which  St.  John  thought,  the  washing  was  not 
limited  to  any  priestly  family,  but  was  co-exten- 
sive with  the  whole  company  of  believers.  They 
therefore  had  become  what  the  older  Israel 
of  God  was  at  first  meant  to  be  in  idea  and 
constitution,   "a  kingdom   of  priests."^      That 

*  I  follow  this  as  a  better    reading    than    that  which   gives 
**hath  made  us  kings  and  priests." 


24  Introductory, 

sprinkling  of  blood  upon  the  whole  people,  before 
the  great  apostasy  of  the  golden  calf,  had  been 
the  symbol  that  they  too  were  all  consecrated 
and  set  apart  for  their  high  calling.  (Exod.  xix. 
6,  10 ;  xxiv.  8.)  So  St.  John  (in  this  instance 
also  following  in  the  track  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews)  looked  on  the  true  priest's  work  as  not 
limited  to  any  order  of  the  Church's  ministry. 
All  might  offer  the  sacrifice  of  praise  and  thanks- 
giving, the  incense  of  praise  and  adoration ;  all 
might  pass  within  the  veil,  and  enter  into  the 
Holiest  and  plead  for  themselves  and  for  their 
brother  in  the  power  of  the  blood  of  Jesus.  To 
Him,  then,  who  had  done,  and  was  yet  doing, 
such  great  things  for  them,  the  beloved  Disciple 
offers  an  ascription  of  praise  and  glory  and  power 
like  that  which  went  up  from  the  lips  of  every 
devout  Israelite  to  the  Everlasting  Father. 

But  the  thoughts  of  the  Seer  travel  on  to  the 
far  future.  "  Behold^  he  cometh  with  clouds^ 
The  words  that  had  been  spoken  by  the  Lord 
in  his  hearing  in  the  High  Priest's  palace 
had  claimed  for  the  Christ  the  fulfilment  of 
the  vision  of  Daniel,  in  which  the  prophet 
had  seen  one  like  unto  the  Son  of  Man  come 
with  the  clouds  of  heaven,  even  unto  the  Ancient 
of  days.  (Dan.  vii.  13  ;  Matt,  xxvii.  14.)  Even 
before  that  utterance  of  the  truth,  as  he  with 


Introductory.  25 

Peter  and  Andrew  and  James,  had  sat  on  the 
Mount  of  Olives,  hearing  from  the  Lord's  lips 
that  wondrous  unveiling  of  the  future,  he  had 
learnt  that  a  day  would  come  "  when  all  the 
tribes  of  the  earth  shall  mourn,  and  they  shall 
see  the  Son  of  man  coming  in  the  clouds  of 
heaven  with  power  and  great  glory "  (Matt. 
xxiv.  29).  The  reference  here  to  that  declara- 
tion is  clear  and  unmistakable,  and  so  far  we 
have  a  proof,  in  a  book  which  the  latest  and 
least  traditional  criticism  ascribes  to  the  reign 
of  Nero,  which,  at  the  latest,  is  as  early  as  that 
of  Domitian,  that,  if  not  the  whole  Gospel  of 
St.  Matthew  in  its  present  shape,  at  least  that 
prophetic  discourse  was  already  current  and 
recognised  in  the  Churches  of  Asia,  or  else  that 
the  memory  of  the  writer  of  the  Apocalypse 
supplied  him  with  the  selfsame  record. 

"And  every  eye  shall  see  him  and  they  also 
which  pierced  him,'"  Here,  as  elsewhere,  we 
have  words  which  carry  us  back,  first,  to  the 
Gospel  of  St.  John,  and,  secondly,  to  the  teaching 
of  an  older  prophet.  The  Fourth  Gospel  alone 
records  the  fact,  which  the  writer,  we  must 
believe,  alone  of  all  the  four,  had  seen  with  his 
own  eyes,  of  the  pierced  side  and  of  the  water 
and  the  blood.  (John  xix.  34,  2>7')  The  writer 
of  this  book  remembers  that  fact,  and  connects 


26  InU^odudory. 

it  with  words  which  are  a  literal  Greek  rendering 
(not,  be  it  observed,  from  the  version  of  the 
LXX.,  which  translates  the  words  quite  dif- 
ferently) of  part  of  Zech.  xii.  lo.  The  Gospel, 
the  later  work,  as  we  believe,  of  the  same  wTiter, 
does  explicitly  what  is  here  done  implicitly,  and 
cites  the  prophecy  as  fulfilled  in  the  event ;  and 
with  identically  the  same  variation  from  the 
current  Greek  version  as  that  which  we  find 
here.  It  would  be  difficult,  I  think,  to  find 
anywhere  a  much  stronger  indirect  proof  of 
identity  of  authorship.  It  is  clear,  however, 
that  St.  John  had  learnt  to  generalise  and 
idealise  the  event  to  which  he  thus  refers.  As 
those  who  fell  away  from  the  faith,  or  became 
its  open  enemies,  crucified  to  themselves  the 
Son  of  God  afresh  (Heb.  vi.  6),  so  it  was  not 
only  the  lance  of  the  Roman  soldier  that  actually 
pierced  Him,  but  much  more  all  those  whose 
sins  of  act  or  thought,  whose  want  of  faith  and 
love,  had  been  to  Him  as  those  of  the  inhabitants 
of  Jerusalem  had  been,  in  the  language  of  the 
older  prophet,  cutting  and  piercing  to  the  quick. 
And  ^^ all  the  kindreds  of  the  earthy''^  so  run  the 
words  of  the  Apostle,  "  shall  wail  because  of  him.'' 
That  Epiphany  of  the  Judge  in  his  Majesty  and 
Righteousness  cannot  but  call  forth  terror  and 
dismay    in  all   who  under  this  name,  "0/  the 


Introductory.  27 

eavth^''  earthy,  are  described  as  unholy  and 
rebellious.  The  memory  of  past  sins,  the  dread 
of  penalty,  the  shame  at  having  sinned  against 
the  Holiest,  these  will  all  be  elements  of  woe 
and  sorrow  unspeakable.  The  words  seem  at 
first  to  tell  not  only  of  such  an  ineffable  anguish, 
but  of  a  wailing  hopeless  and  irremediable.  We 
turn,  however,  to  the  words  of  the  older  prophet, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  were  clearly  in  St. 
John's  thoughts ;  and  there,  so  far  from  the 
picture  of  an  irremediable  penalty,  we  find  that 
looking  upon  Him  whom  men  had  pierced,  con- 
nected closely  with  the  pouring  out  "  of  the 
spirit  of  grace  and  supplication,"  with  a  great 
and  bitter  mourning,  it  is  true,  but  also  with  the 
opening  even  then  of  "  the  fountain  for  sin  and 
for  uncleanness."  (Zech.  xii.  10  ;  xiii.  i.)  So 
it  was,  we  may  believe,  that  the  Seer,  accepting 
the  thoughts  of  the  terror  and  judgment  as 
coming  from  the  Manifestation  of  One.  who  was 
infinitely  righteous,  could  contemplate  that  dark 
vision  of  the  future  without  misgiving,  and  add, 
as  in  adoring  acceptance,  ^^  Even  so,  Amen.'' 
And  then,  for  the  first  time,  the  form  of  the 
message  changes,  and  the  voice  of  the  Lord 
is  heard  speaking  in  his  own  name  :  "  /  am 
Alpha  and  Omega,  the  beginning  and  the  ending'' 
(these  latter  words,  however,  are  wanting  in  the 


28  Introductory, 

best  manuscripts,  and  are  probably  a  gloss  upon 
the  names  of  the  Greek  letters),  ''  saith  the  Lord 
God "  (I  follow  the  best  manuscripts  in  this 
reading),  "which  is,  and  which  was,  and  is  to 
come,  the  Almighty.'"  I  am  not  aware  that 
there  is  any  example  in  any  writing  earlier  than 
the  Apocalypse  of  this  mystical  use  of  the  first 
and  last  letters  of  the  Greek  alphabet,  and  the 
instances  which  are  quoted  of  a  like  employment 
of  the  corresponding  letters  (corresponding  i.e, 
in  position)  of  the  Hebrew  alphabet,  x  and  n,  are 
all  of  much  later  date.  So  far  as  the  evidence 
goes,  it  may  well  have  been  that  St.  John  himself 
was  the  first  to  seize  on  that  mystic  significance, 
and  to  see  in  the  two  letters  of  the  alphabet 
which  was  at  least  comparatively  new  to  him, 
the  symbol  of  the  Eternity  of  God,  so  limitless 
that  we  can  imagine  nothing  as  either  before 
or  after  it.  As  the  words  stand  with  the  reading 
^' the  Lord  God,''  and  interpreted  by  what  has 
gone  before  in  verse  4,  they  refer  primarily  to 
the  Eternity  of  the  Father.  We  need  not  fear 
lest,  in  adopting  that  reading,  we  should  sacrifice 
one  jot  or  tittle  of  the  witness  which,  with  the 
received  reading,  the  words  have  been  thought 
to  bear  to  the  divinity  of  the  Son.  The  more 
distinctly  we  refer  them  here  to  "the  Almighty'' 
in   the   Old   Testament   sense   of  the  word  (6 


Introductory,  29 

TravTOKpdrcop,  the  LXX.  rendering  of  the  Lord 
of  Sabaoth  —  the  Lord  of  Hosts),  the  more 
wonderful  is  their  explicit  application  in  the 
immediate  sequel  to  Him,  rather,  their  utterance 
by  Him,  who  was  seen  in  the  midst  of  the  seven 
golden  candlesticks. 

The  words  in  which  the  writer  of  the  Apo- 
calypse describes  himself,  and  the  process  by 
which  the  messages  he  is  about  to  write  came 
to  him,  are  every  way  significant.  "  Tribu- 
lation "  had  come  upon  those  Churches,  and  he 
was  a  ^^fellow-sharer''  with  them  in  the  suffer- 
ings which  it  brought ;  but  through  the  tribu- 
lation he  and  they  were  alike  gaining  their  place 
"m  the  kingdom.''  He  repeats,  ^'.e.  the  lesson 
which  the  Churches  in  that  region  had  heard  at 
the  outset  from  St.  Paul,  that  "  we  must  through 
much  tribulation  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 
God"  (Acts  xiv.  22).  But  he  is  their  partner 
also  in  iht  patience  or  ^'endurance,"  not  of  (I 
follow  the  better  reading),  but  "  w  Jesus."  The 
thought  expressed  is  not,  as  it  is  perhaps  in 
2  Thess.  iii.  5  (if  we  accept  our  English  render- 
ing), that  of  "the  patient  waiting  for  Christ," 
nor  yet  of  a  patience  like  that  of  which  Christ 
had  been  the  great  example,  but  of  an  endurance 
which  had  its  life  and  energy  in  union  with  Him. 
He   goes  on  to  tell  how  it  was  that  he   found 


30  Iiiti^odudory. 

himself  in  Patmos.  He  had  proclaimed  the 
Word  of  God  ;  he  had  borne  his  witness,  and 
this  was  the  result.  It  would  help  us  but  little 
in  the  work  on  which  we  have  entered  to  picture 
to  ourselves  the  rocks  and  shores  of  that  island. 
With  its  scenery  w^e  have  but  small  concern. 
The  imagery  of  the  visions  that  follow  is  all  but 
entirely  unaffected  by  the  external  surroundings 
of  the  Seer.  At  the  furthest,  we  can  but  think 
of  the  deep-blue  waters  of  the  Mediterranean, 
now  purple  as  wine,  now  green  as  emerald, 
flushing  and  flashing  in  the  light  like  the  hues 
on  the  plumage  of  a  dove,  opalescent  and  phos- 
phorescent, according  to  the  changes  of  sun-  and 
moon-light,  as  accustoming  the  Apostle's  eye, 
and,  through  the  eye,  his  thoughts,  to  impres- 
sions of  splendours  and  glories — the  rainbow 
round  about  the  throne,  and  the  sea  of  crystal 
mingled  with  fire  (Rev.  iv.  3-6) — which  we  find 
it  all  but  impossible  to  represent  to  the  imagi- 
nation, and  which  even  he  found  it  hard  to 
express  adequately  in  words. 

And  he  was  "  zn  the  Spirit y  on  the  Lord's 
day.''  I  cannot  hesitate  for  a  moment  to  accept 
the  current  explanation  of  the  latter  phrase  as 
meaning  the  first  day  of  the  week,  the  day  of 
the  Lord's  resurrection,  the  day  also,  let  us 
remember,  of  the  Lord's  supper.     The  adjective 


Introductory,  3 1 

(Kupta«;6?=belonging  to  the  Lord),  which  in  each 
case  expresses  the  sacred  character  of  the  supper 
or  the  day,  was,  so  far  as  we  can  trace  it,  either 
coined  by  St.  Paul,  or  for  the  first  time  taken 
out  of  colloquial  into  written  use,  as  applied  to 
the  former.  It  is  found  in  no  earlier  writer. 
It  seems  probable  that,  fashioned  as  it  was  to 
express  a  new  thought  and  meet  a  new  want,  it 
spread  rapidly  among  the  Greek  -  speaking 
Churches,  and  its  first  extension  would  naturally 
be  to  the  day  on  which  the  disciples  in  each 
Church  met  together  to  partake  of  the  sacred 
meal  to  which  it  had  been  originally  applied.^ 
Let  us  think,  then,  what  that  day  would  be  to 
the  beloved  Disciple  in  his  Patmos  exile  ;  how, 
absent  from  his  flock  in  the  body,  he,  at  that  hour 
of  closest  communion  with  them  and  with  his 
Lord,  would  yet  be  with  them  in  the  spirit ;  how 
the  very  separation  would  throw  him  back  more 
entirely  upon  the  earlier  memories  of  the  day  as 
that  on  which  he  had  first  beheld  his  Master  as 

^  The  same  word  KvpiaKog  is,  according  to  a  current,  but  not 
quite  certain,  etymology^  the  origin  of  Kirche,  Kirk,  Church,  as 
being  the  Lord's  house.  "  Cyriac,"  as  a  proper  name,  is  another 
instance  of  its  extension.  Some  modern  philologists,  however, 
are  inclined  to  refer  the  word  Church  to  a  Gothic  or  Teutonic 
root .  It  is,  at  any  rate,  a  suggestive  fact  that  while  the  Teutonic 
languages  of  modern  Europe  make  it  the  representative  of 
"ecclesia,"  all  the  Romance  languages  have  some  word  directly 
derived  from  the  Greek  original. 


32  Introductory. 


^ 


the  conqueror  of  Hades  and  of  Death.  It  was 
natural,  if  we  may  apply  that  term  to  the 
orderly  sequence  of  spiritual  phenomena,  that 
such  emotions  should  pass  into  ecstatic  adora- 
tion, that  the  life  of  sense  should  be  suspended, 
that  he  should  be  in  the  state  of  half-conscious- 
ness which  St.  Paul  so  well  portrays:  "  Whether 
in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body,  I  cannot  tell  : 
God  knovveth  "  (2  Cor.  xii.).  In  that  trance- 
state  so  described,  in  which  the  man  sees  what 
others  cannot  see  and  hears  voices  which  others 
cannot  hear,  and  which,  in  this  case  at  least, 
did  not  deprive  the  Seer  of  the  power  of  distinctly 
recording  afterwards  what  had  been  thus  made 
known,  the  messages  to  the  Seven  Churches 
were  revealed  to  him. 

The  first  impression  made  on  the  new  con- 
sciousness is  that  which  is  described  as  like  the 
sound  of  "  a  great  voice ^  as  of  a  tnunpetJ"  It 
woke  him  out  of  the  sleep  that  was  the  transition- 
stage  between  the  lower  and  the  higher  life.  Its 
sounds  thrilled  through  brain  and  nerve,  as  will 
thrill  one  day  the  trump  of  the  archangel.  He 
heard  the  words,  "  I  am  Alpha  and  Omega,  the 
first  and  the  last,''  of  which  he  had  already  re- 
produced the  echoes.  He  heard  too,  as  if  in 
answer  to  unuttered  and  unrecorded  prayers, 
the   words   which    told    him    that    there   were 


Introductory,  33 

messages  from  that  Eternal  One  to  each  of  those 
Churches,  or  communities  of  believers,  whose 
wants  and  perils  had  been  as  a  burden  on  his 
soul.  If  his  waking  thoughts  had  travelled,  as 
thoughts  do  travel  at  such  times  and  under  such 
conditions,  to  those  sheep  of  the  flock  of  the 
Great  Shepherd  whom  he  had  so  often  visited, 
with  whom  he  had  so  often  on  the  Lord's  day 
broken  the  bread  and  drunk  of  the  cup  of  bless- 
ing, it  must  have  been  welcome  tidings  to  him 
that  he  could  preach  to  them  a  diviner  word  of 
counsel  and  reproof  from  his  place  of  exile  than 
he  had  done  when  he  had  been  living  and 
working  in  the  midst  of  them.  And  then  he 
turned  and  looked — and  the  vision  that  met  his 
gaze  was  one  of  glory  and  majesty  unspeakable. 
The  "  seven  golden  candlesticks  "  which  he  there 
beheld  would  at  least  remind  him  of  the 
seven-branched  candlestick  which  stood  in  the 
inner  sanctuary  (not  the  Holy  of  Holies)  of  the 
Tabernacle  and  the  Temple.  They  had  borne 
their  witness  there  for  centuries  that  God  was 
Light,  and  that  that  Light  revealed  itself  in 
manifold  variety  growing  out  of  a  central  unity. ^ 

^  The  description  of  the  golden  candlestick  in  Exod.  xxv., 
with  its  central  stem,  the  three  branches  on  either  side,  parting 
into  smaller  branches,  with  buds  and  flowers,  and  almond-like 
fruit  on  each,  is  singularly  suggestive.  It  was  tree-like  in  its 
form — but  if  so,  with  what  meaning  ?     Was  it  intended  to  sym- 


34  Introductory. 

In  the  vision  of  Zechariah  —  whose  prophecy 
had,  as  we  have  seen  already,  been  much  in  the 
mind  of  St.  John,  suggesting  imagery  and 
phraseology — it  had  been  seen  (probably  after 
the  pattern  of  the  lamp  constructed,  at  the  time 
of  the  return  from  the  Babylonian  exile  under 
Zerubbabel,  for  the  restored  Temple)  as  a 
"  candlestick  all  of  gold,  with  a  bowl  upon  the 
top  of  it,  and  his  seven  lamps  thereon,  and  seven 
pipes  to  the  seven  lamps,  which  are  upon  the 
top  thereof"  (Zech.  iv.  2).  To  make  the  symbol 
yet  more  complete,  and  adapted  to  what  were 
then  the  pressing  necessities  of  the  time,  he  saw 
in  his  vision  two  olive-trees  feeding  from  their 
branches,  through  two  golden  pipes,  the  bowl 
through  which  the  lamps  were  kept  burning. 
He  learnt  in  the  interpretation  of  the  symbol 
that  the  two  olive-trees  were  the  two  "  sons  of 
oil,"  the  two  "  anointed  ones,"  the  representa- 
tives of  priestly  and  of  civil   authority,  Joshua 

bolise  the  "  Tree  of  Life  that  was  in  the  midst  of  the  Paradise 
of  God?"  (Rev.  ii.  7.)  Was  this  the  earHest expression  of  the 
Truth  that  in  God  the  light  and  Hfe  were  one,  and  that  both 
flowed  from  Him  into  the  spirits  of  his  creatures?  (See  the 
present  writer's  Biblical  Studies,  p.  62.)  I  may  add,  as  con- 
firming this  conclusion,  the  remarkable  fact  that  a  rough  outline 
of  the  seven-branched  candlestick,  or  lamp,  occurs  frequently  in  the 
Jewish  cemeteries  at  Rome  and  elsewhere  (Milman's  History  of  the 
Jeius,  vol.  iii.  p.  457).  Simply  as  such,  it  was  not  a  natural 
ornament  for  a  sepulchre,  but  if  it  were  also  the  symbol  of  the 
Tree  of  Life,  its  appearance  there  is  sufficiently  accounted  for. 


Introductory.  ^--g 

and  Zerubbabel,  upon  whom  at  that  period 
the  welfare  of  the  nation's  Ufe  depended.  The 
candlestick,  or  lamp,  that  was  thus  seen  in  the 
prophet's  vision  was  probably  identical  in  form 
with  that  which  has  become  familiar  to  us  as 
represented  on  the  Arch  of  Titus,  among  the 
spoils  of  Jerusalem.  Here,  however,  we  have 
what  seems  at  first  a  modification  of  the  sym- 
bolism, almost  a  new  symbol.  The  Seer  beholds 
not  a  lamp  with  seven  branches,  but  seven 
distinct  lamps.  The  ethical  reason  of  the 
change  is,  perhaps,  not  far  to  seek.  For  him 
the  lamp  was  the  symbol  not  merely  of  the  un- 
created Light,  but  (so  he  had  been  taught  by 
his  Lord  himself)  of  a  Christian  society,  as  the 
channel  through  which  that  light  was  to  be 
diffused  through  the  world,  a  lamp  set  upon  the 
lamp-shaft  or  pedestal  (Matt.  v.  15).  What  he 
needed  therefore  was  to  bring  out  clearly  the 
individuality  of  each  such  society,  and  this  was 
done  by  the  manner  in  which  they  were  thus 
presented  to  his  vision.  If  one  were  to  endeavour 
to  realise  the  vision  as  it  were  pictorially,  it  may 
have  been  that  the  Form  which  he  beheld  in  the 
seven  lamps  stood  in  front  of  the  central  shaft, 
hiding  it  from  view,  and  so  leaving  them  to 
appear  each  in  its  own  separate  distinctness. 
That  Form  he  describes   as    ''lilie   unto  the 


36  Introductory. 

Son  of  many  Taken  by  themselves,  and 
standing  as  they  do  without  the  article,  the 
words  might  be  translated  simply  as  in  the 
great  prophecy  of  Daniel  (vii.  13),  from  which 
the  title  had  been  derived,  "  One  like  unto  a 
Son  of  man,''  ^  a  form  which,  though  arrayed 
in  glory,  was  yet  human.  But  the  constant 
appropriation  of  the  title  by  the  Lord  Jesus, 
its  use  by  Him  in  the  words  which  had  stamped 
the  expectation  of  His  second  Advent  upon  the 
minds  of  His  disciples,  forbid  us  to  assign  that 
lower  meaning  to  it  here.  What  the  Seer  meant 
his  readers  to  understand  was,  that  he  had  seen 
the  Master  whom  he  had  known  and  loved. 

The  description  that  follows  lies  obviously 
beyond  the  region  of  art.  It  is  an  attempt  to 
portray  thoughts  and  impressions  which  are 
almost,  if  not  altogether,  beyond  the  reach  of 
words.  The  Seer  strives  to  represent  a  glory 
which  has  dazzled  and  confounded  him.  A 
human  form,  pervaded  and  clothed  with  light 
in  all  its  purity,  glorified  and  transfigured,  so 

^  This  is  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt  the  right  rendering 
in  the  older  Revelation.  Here  it  is,  I  think,  open  to  some 
question.  On  the  one  hand  there  is  no  definite  article  in  the 
Greek  ;  and  in  our  Lord's  application  of  it  to  Himself  the  article 
is  always  found.  On  the  other,  its  constant  use  by  Him  may 
have  given  to  it  something  of  the  character  of  a  proper  name 
or  title,  so  that,  with  or  without  the  article,  it  could  not  fail  to 
suggest  a  reference  to  Him. 


Introductory.  37 

that  what  he  had  once  beheld  on  the  Mount 
of  Transfiguration  seemed  to  pale  in  memory 
before  this  greater  brightness,  this  was  what  he 
looked  upon.  It  is  important  that  we  should 
remember  that  there  had  been  that  anticipation 
of  the  glory  of  the  Son  of  man  while  He  was 
yet  on  earth,  that  the  Seer  who  now  beheld 
the  vision  had  then  been  one  of  "  the  eye- 
witnesses of  his  Majesty."  It  is  not  less  im- 
portant to  remember  how  far  it  was  now 
surpassed.  The  head  and  hair  in  their  dazzling 
whiteness  spoke  at  once  of  stainless  purity  and 
of  the  crown  of  glory  of  the  Ancient  of  Days  ; 
the  eyes  seemed  to  burn  into  the  soul  with  their 
fiery  and  searching  gaze  ;  the  voice  was  like 
the  sound  of  many  waters;  even  the  feet, ^  just 
shewn  below  the  long  robe  that  reached  to  the 
ankles,  glowed  with  the  same  pervading  bright- 

^  It  is  not,  I  think,  important  for  our  purpose  to  discuss  the 
mysterious  xakKoKi^avoc, — the  "fine  brass"  of  the  English 
Version.  As  this  is  the  one  passage  in  which  it  is  found,  its 
meaning  must  be  more  or  less  conjectural.  I  incline  with  Bleek 
to  the  view  that  it  is  a  hybrid  compound  of  the  Greek  ■)(aXKoc, 
and  the  Hebrew  ''labdn  " — white.  Such  technical  words  were 
likely  enough  to  be  current  in  a  population  like  that  of  Ephesus, 
consisting  largely  of  workers  in  metal,  some  of  whom,  if  we  may 
judge  from  the  case  of  Alexander  the  coppersmith  (Acts  xix.  34  ; 
2  Tim.  iv.  14),  were  without  doubt  Jews.  I  believe  the  word 
in  question  to  have  belonged  to  this  technical  vocabulary. 
It  is,  at  any  rate,  used  by  St.  John  as  familiar  and  intelligible 
to  those  for  whom  he  wrote. 


3  8  hi  trodttdory. . 

ness.  The  other  details  of  the  manifestation 
are,  however,  more  significant.  The  form  of 
the  Son  of  man  is  seen  arrayed,  not,  as  in  the 
days  of  his  ministry,  in  the  short  seamless  tunic 
and  the  flowing  cloak  (the  ^j^^iVwz/  and  If^drcov, 
which  were  the  common  dress  of  the  Jewish 
peasant),  but  in  the  long  robe  reaching  to  the 
feet,  that  had  been  the  special  garment  of  the 
High  Priest.  St.  John  uses,  i.e.  the  very 
word  7roSr}p7]^,  which  stood  in  the  LXX.  version 
of  Exod.  xxviii.  31  for  the  Ephod  of  Aaron. 
And  He  is  girded  with  a  golden  girdle,  not,  as 
of  one  who  toils  and  runs,  around  the  loins 
(comp.  Luke  xii.  35),  but,  as  of  one  who  had 
passed  into  the  repose  of  sovereignty,  around 
the  breast.  That  the  girdle  should  be  of  gold, 
as  the  symbol  of  that  sovereignty,  was  almost 
a  necessary  consequence.  In  this  combination 
of  the  received  emblems  of  the  two  forms  of 
rule  there  was  setforth,  in  its  simplest  symbolism, 
that  union  of  the  kingly  and  the  priestly  offices, 
that  revival  of  the  priesthood  after  the  order  of 
Melchizedek,  which  the  argument  of  the  writer 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  had  by  this  time 
made  more  or  less  familiar.  And  in  His  hand 
He  holds  seven  stars  (verse  16).  In  what  way 
they  were  seen  as  held  by  Him  we  are  not  told  ; 
but  the  s3'mbolism  is,   I  venture  to  think,  far 


Introductory.  39 

more  suggestive  if  we  think  of  them  as  shining 
as  precious  gems  would  shine  if  used  as  signet- 
rings,  than  if  w^e  picture  to  ourselves  the  seven 
stars  as  held  in  the  palm  of  the  hand,  or  sus- 
pended from  it  as  a  wreath.^  Here,  at  least, 
there  is  the  guiding  precedent  of  the  old  pro- 
phetic language.  Of  one  king  of  the  house 
of  David  it  had  been  said  that  though  he  were 
as  the  "  signet  upon  the  right  hand  "  of  Jehovah, 
he  should  be  plucked  from  it  and  cast  away. 
(Jer.  xxii.  24.)  Of  another  heir  to  the  kingly 
succession  of  that  house  the  promise  had  been 
written,  "  I  will  take  thee,  O  Zerubbabel,  my 
servant,  .  .  .  saith  the  Lord,  and  will  make 
thee  as  a  signet"  (Hagg.  ii.  23).  To  the 
Eastern  mind  no  symbol  could  more  adequately 
express  the  preciousness  of  the  Angels  of  the 
Churches  to  Him  who  thus  held  them,  the 
honour  to  which  He  had  exalted  them,  the 
care  with  which  He  watched  over  them. 

The  character  of  the  next  symbol  is  less 
ambiguous — "  Out  of   his   month   went  a  sharp 

^  If  one  may  venture  on  representing  to  the  eye  the  manner 
in  which  they  were  thus  held,  I  would  suggest  that  they  were 
seen  on  the  inner  side  of  the  open  hand,  arranged  in  an  order 
like  that  of  the  seven  stars  in  the  constellation  of  Ursa  Major. 
It  may  be  noticed  that  Philo  refers  both  to  that  constellation  and 
the  Pleiades  as  examples  of  the  prominence  of  the  mystic  number 
even  in  the  visible  and  material  universe. 


40  Introductory. 

two-edged  swovdy  The  thought  expressed  is 
obviously  that  of  the  power  of  the  Divine  Judge 
to  discern  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart, 
and  to  punish  those  which  were  evil  and  deserved 
punishment.  The  sword  was  thus  identical 
with  "  the  word  of  the  Lord "  of  the  older 
prophets  (Isa.  xlix.  2),  and  of  Heb.  iv.  12, 
"  sharper  than  any  two-edged  sword,  piercing 
even  to  the  dividing  asunder  of  soul  and  spirit, 
and  of  the  joints  and  marrow."  Here,  adopting 
the  new  nomenclature  of  the  writer,  we  may 
call  it  "  the  word  of  the  Word  " — the  spoken 
utterance  of  Him  who  Himself  utters  the  mind 
and  will  of  the  Eternal  Father.  What  the  Seer 
beheld  in  vision  was  the  expression  of  the  truth 
that  the  message  he  was  about  to  record  would 
be  conveyed  in  keen  and  piercing  words,  cutting 
through  the  ulcers  of  the  soul,  cutting  off  the 
diseased  members,  laying  bare  the  inmost  organs 
of  the  inner  life,  slaying  those  who  deserved 
slaughter ;  but  also  wounding  to  heal,  even 
slaying  that  He  might  raise  as  from  the  dead. 
And  therefore  it  was  that  the  countenance  which 
he  beheld  was  "  as  the  sun  shining  in  his 
strength,''  bright  and  terrible  to  look  upon,  and 
yet  the  source  of  all  life  and  joy.  In  the  light 
of  that  countenance  he  and  all  men,  if  they 
walked  in  it,  should  see  the  light  of  life. 


Introductory.  41 

So  it  was  in  the  immediate  personal  expe- 
rience of  the  Disciple.  As  though  that  sword 
had  pierced  his  soul,  as  though  that  light  were 
too  dazzling  for  mortal  eye,  he  ^^  fell  at  his  feet 
as  dead.''  And  then  from  that  death-like  trance 
he  was  roused  by  a  touch  and  by  a  word :  ^'  He 
laid  his  right  hand  upon  me,  saying  unto  me, 
Fear  not.''  We  can  hardly  doubt  that  that 
touch  must  have  recalled  many  an  hour  of 
loving  and  tender  companionship  in  what 
seemed  now  as  a  remote  past,  when  he  had 
leant  his  head  upon  the  Master's  breast,  and 
had  felt  the  hand  that  told  of  sympathy  and 
of  love  laid,  in  hours  of  sorrow  and  perplexity, 
upon  his  shoulder,  or  clasping  his  hand  in  the 
confidence  of  friendship.  ''Fear  not!"  that 
too  had  been  often  heard  by  the  disciples  on 
the  Lake  of  Galilee  (Matt.  xiv.  27  ;  John  vi.  19) 
in  the  dark  hours  of  night.  It  had  been  the 
cheering  watchword  of  his  call  to  be  one  of  the 
"  fishers  of  men"  (Luke  v.  10),  one  of  the  "little 
flock"  which  the  Good  Shepherd  had  deigned  to 
take  under  his  especial  guardianship(Luke  xii.32) . 
Then,  for  the  most  part,  it  was  the  thought  of 
their  Lord's  presence  that  removed  their  fear, 
the  presence  of  One  who  was  then  "  despised 
and  rejected  of  men,"  like  themselves  in  the 
outward  accidents  of  life.    That  which  removed 


42  Introductory. 

the  greater  fear  now  was  the  assurance  which 
the  word  and  the  touch  gave  him  that  the 
glorified  form  on  which  he  looked  was  one  with 
the  Son  of  man,  whom  he  had  known  and  loved, 
one  also  with  the  Eternal  Lord,  One  who  had 
triumphed  over  death,  the  living  One  who  had 
died,  but  was  henceforth  "  alive  for  evermore.'' 
The  word  ^^  Amen''  which  followed,  so  often 
used  by  our  Lord  during  his  earthly  ministry, 
placed  this  assurance  of  His  own  everlasting  life, 
the  source  of  all  life  to  others,  on  the  level  of  the 
highest  truths  which  He  had  been  wont  to  seal 
with  this  emphatic  affirmation. 

And  to  this  there  was  added  the  new  pro- 
clamation :  "/  have  the  keys  of  death  and  of 
Hades"  (I  take  the  words  in  what  appears  to 
be  their  true  order).  What  thoughts  would 
those  words  raise  in  the  mind  of  the  hearer  ? 
What  abiding  truths  do  they  set  forth  for  us  ? 
He,  we  know,  had  heard  his  Master  speak  of 
"  the  gates  of  Hades  "  (Matt.  xvi.  i8).  He 
had  accepted  the  interpretation  of  the  old 
Messianic  psalm,  which  spoke  of  the  soul  of 
the  Christ  as  not  having  been  left  in  Hades. 
He  must  have  known  the  faith  of  St.  Peter,  that 
in  his  descent  into  Hades  his  Lord  had,  in  that 
unseen  world,  preached  to  "the  spirits  in  prison," 
who  had  once  been  disobedient  (i  Pet.  iii.  19), 


Introdttdory .  43 

proclaiming  his  gospel  to  those  that  were  dead, 
that  they  might  be  judged  according  to  men 
in  the  flesh,  but  live  according  to  God  in  the 
Spirit  (i  Pet.  iv.  6).  He  may  have  been  familiar 
with  the  half-proverbial  saying  which  appeared 
afterwards  in  the  Targums  and  the  Talmud, 
that  the  key  of  the  grave  was  one  of  the  four 
keys  which  the  Eternal  King  committed  to  no 
ministering  angel,  but  reserved  exclusively  in 
his  own  power  and  for  his  own  use.  In  any 
case  he  knew,  both  from  the  language  of  the 
older  prophets  (Isa.  xxii.  22)  and  from  his 
Lord's  promise  to  Peter  (Matt.  xvi.  18),  that 
the  key  was  the  recognised  symbol  of  supreme, 
though,  it  might  be,  delegated  authority,  of  the 
power  to  open  and  shut,  to  admit  and  to  ex- 
clude. In  these  words,  therefore,  he  would 
hear  the  assurance  that  the  shadowy  realms 
on  which  men  looked  with  terror,  and  which 
they  peopled  with  all  dark  imaginings,  were 
in  very  deed  subject  to  the  rule  of  Him  who, 
though  He  had  tasted  death  for  every  man,  was 
now  alive  for  evermore.  ^^  Death  and  Hades'' 
— these  were  familiar  sounds,  as  the  names  of 
the  two  great  enemies  of  mankind,  the  forces 
that  opposed  the  fulfilment  of  God's  purposes 
and  the  completion  of  his  kingdom.  Now  he 
heard  that  they   had   been   despoiled   of  their 


44  Introductory. 

power  to  harm,  as  afterwards  he  was  to  hear 
that  they  would  dehver  up  the  dead  that  were 
in  them,  and  that  they  themselves  should  be 
cast,  together  with  those  who  were  not  found 
written  in  the  Book  of  Life,  into  "the  lake  of 
fire "  (Rev.  xx.  13-15).  That  thought  was 
the  one  adequate  remedy  for  the  fear  of  death 
through  which,  with  hardly  an  exception,  men 
had  been  all  their  life-time  subject  to  bondage 
(Heb  ii.  15) ;  for  the  secret  of  that  fear  was 
their  want  of  faith  that  there  also,  in  that  un- 
seen world,  behind  the  veil,  were  to  be  traced 
the  workings  of  an  absolute  Righteousness  and 
an  everlasting  Love. 

The  command  that  followed — "  Write  the 
things  which  thou  hast  seen,  and  the  things 
which  are^  and  the  things  that  shall  be  here- 
after'''— was  simple  and  clear  enough.  But  as 
yet  the  inner  meaning  of  the  vision  that  he  had 
looked  on  had  not  been  made  known  to  him, 
and  it  was  the  fitting  sequel  to  the  education 
through  which  his  Lord  had  led  him  while  on 
earth,  explaining  to  hiro  and  to  his  brother 
disciples  the  mysteries  of  the  Kingdom  of  Hea- 
ven, which  to  others  were  veiled  in  parables, 
that  here  also,  before  he  entered  on  the  special 
task  assigned  him,  he  should  be  taught  the 
meaning  of  the  symbols  of  the  seven  stars  that 


Introductory.  45 

were  in  or  on  the  right  hand  of  the  Son  of  man, 
and  of  the  seven  golden  candlesticks  in  the  midst 
of  which  He  stood.  The  seven  stars  were,  he 
heard,  "  the  angels  of  the  seven  churches.'' 

The  question.  Who  were  meant  by  these 
Angels  ?  has  received  very  different  answers. 
On  the  one  hand  it  has  been  urged  that  every- 
where else  throughout  the  Book  "  angels  "  are 
angels  in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of  the  word, 
superhuman  messengers  and  ministers  of  God  ; 
that  the  term  is  nowhere  else  applied  in  the 
New  Testament,  nor  in  early  Patristic  writings, 
to  any  officer  or  teacher  in  the  Church  ;  that 
the  symbolism  of  the  visions  of  Daniel,  in  which 
Persia  and  Grecia  are  represented  by  angels 
(Dan.  X.  20,  21 ;  xii.  i.),  who  are  as  their 
princes  and  guardians,  finds  a  natural  parallel 
here.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  urged  that,  even 
admitting,  what  it  is  hard  to  admit,  that  the 
language  of  Daniel  is  more  than  symbolic,  and 
that  there  are  round  the  Eternal  Throne  the 
guardian  angels  of  nations,  with  the  divided 
counsels  and  conflicting  interests  of  the  peoples 
committed  to  their  care,  diplomatic  representa- 
tives, as  it  were,  at  the  court  of  the  Great  King, 
the  words  that  are  addressed  to  the  angels  of 
the  Churches  are  altogether  inapplicable  except 
to  men  of  like  passions  with  ourselves.     They 


46  Introductory. 

have  ''laboured  and  not  fainted,"  or  they  have  to 
suffer  "even  unto  death,"  or  they  have  ''left  their 
first  love,"  or  they  are  "  neither  cold  nor  hot,"  and 
are  in  peril  of  utter  rejection.  I  follow  accord- 
ingly the  majority  of  commentators  in  identi- 
fying these  angels  with  those  whom  we  should 
call  the  bishops  of  the  Churches,  the  chief 
presbyters,  vested  with  authority  over  other 
presbyters,  exercising  control  over  all  the 
Churches  of  what  in  modern  phrase  would  be 
called  their  diocese, — the  city  and  its  suburbs 
committed  to  their  care. 

But  the  question  comes  why  these  chief 
presbyters  were  described  here,  and  here  only, 
by  this  new  title  ;  and  the  answer  is  to  be  found, 
I  believe,  in  the  special  phenomena  of  that 
transition  period  of  the  apostolic  age  to  which 
we  have  referred  the  Book  before  us.  In  the 
earlier  organisation  the  names  of  bishop  and 
elder  were,  as  is  well  known,  interchangeable,^ 
and  the  Apostles  occupied  a  position  more  or 
less  analogous  to  that  of  the  bishops  of  later 
date.  But  at  the  time  when  St.  John  wrote, 
the  personal  care  of  St.  Paul  had  been  with- 
drawn from  the  Asiatic  Churches,  and  had  been 

Mt  is  hardly  necessary  to  prove  an  admitted  fact,  but  a  refer- 
ence to  the  following  passages  will  shew  the  equivalence  of  the 
two  terms  :  Acts  xx.  17,  28;  Phil.  i.  i  ;  i  Tim.  iii.  I,  8j  Tit. 
i.  5,  7  ;  I  Pet.  V.  I,  2. 


Introductory.  47 

delegated  to  one  specially  sent  by  him,  like 
Timotheus,  to  act  on  his  behalf  in  appointing, 
reproving,  or  deposing  elders.  What  title  was 
to  be  given  to  this  new  officer,  this  Vicar  Apos- 
tolic of  the  primitive  Church  ?  The  term 
"  bishop  "  had  not  yet  risen  to  the  higher  level 
in  which  it  implied  a  superiority  to  presbyter. 
The  name  ''apostle,"  as  applied  to  those  w^ho 
had  been  called  and  chosen  by  Christ  himself, 
was  too  high.  In  its  other  sense,  as  used  of 
those  who  were  simply  the  "messengers"  of 
the  Churches  (2  Cor.  viii.  2,  3),  it  was  too  low. 
The  word  "  angels  "  might  well  commend  itself 
at  such  a  time  as  fitted  to  indicate  the  office  for 
which  the  received  terminology  of  the  Church 
offered  no  adequate  expression.  Over  and 
above  its  ordinary  use  it  had  been  applied  by 
the  prophet  whose  writings  had  been  brought 
into  a  new  prominence  by  the  ministry  of  the 
Baptist,  to  himself  as  a  prophet  (Mai.  i.  i),  to 
the  priests  of  Israel  (Mai.  ii.  7),  to  the  fore- 
runner of  the  Lord  (Mai.  iii.  i).  It  had  been 
used  of  those  whom,  in  a  lower  sense,  the  Lord 
had  sent  to  prepare  his  way  before  Him  (Luke 
ix.  52),  and  whose  work  stood  on  the  same 
level  as  that  of  the  Seventy.  Here  then  seemed 
to  be  that  which  met  the  want.  So  far  as  it 
reminded  men   of  its  higher  sense  it  testified 


48  Introductory . 

that  the  servants  of  God  who  had  been  called 
to  this  special  office  were  to  "  lead  on  earth  an 
angel's  life  ;  "  that  they,  both  in  the  liturgical 
and  the  ministerial  aspects  of  their  work,  were 
to  be  as  those  who  in  both  senses  were  "  minis- 
tering spirits"  in  heaven  (Heb.  i.  I40-  It  helped 
also — and  this  may  well  have  commended  it — 
to  bring  the  language  of  the  Revelation  into 
harmony  with  that  of  the  great  apocalyptic 
work  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  prophecy  of 
Daniel.  On  the  other  hand,  we  need  not 
wonder  that  it  did  not  take  a  prominent  place 
in  the  vocabulary  of  the  Church.  The  old 
associations  of  the  word  were  too  dominant, 
the  difficulty  of  distinguishing  the  new  from 
the  old  too  great,  to  allow  of  its  being  generally 
accepted.  It  was  enough  that  it  answered,  as 
now,  a  special  purpose. 

That  these  bishop-angels  of  the  Churches 
should  be  represented  by  the  symbol  of  the 
stars  must  have  seemed,  as  soon  as  the  key 
was  once  given,  to  be  simple  and  natural 
enough.  They  too  were  set  in  the  firmament 
of  heaven,  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  to  give 
light  upon  the  earth.     "Their  sound  had  gone 

'  It  may  be  worth  while  to  note  that  there  are  two  distinct 
Greek  words  in  this  verse  rendered  by  the  same  English  word 
and  that  the  first  expresses  the  service  of  worship,  the  second  the 
of  ministration. 


hitrodudoiy ,  49 

into  all  the  earth  "  (so  St.  Paul  had  interpreted 
the  words  of  the  noblest  of  the  Psalms  of  nature, 
which  referred  in  their  original  meaning  to  the 
voiceless  witness  of  the  stars),  "and  their  words 
unto  the  ends  of  the  world"  (Rom.  x.  18). 
And  for  those  to  whom  these  messages  were 
sent,  the  fact  that  they  were  as  stars  in  the 
right  hand  of  Christ  was  at  once  solemnising 
and  strengthening.  They  were  not  what  they 
were,  or  where  they  were,  by  chance.  In  the 
hand  of  Christ,  subject  to  his  power,  but  sus- 
tained also  by  his  strength,  safe  so  long  as  they 
continued  there,  shining  in  their  unclouded 
brightness ;  in  danger  if  they  strayed  from  his 
protection,  to  be  as  the  "  wandering  stars,  to 
whom  is  reserved  the  blackness  of  darkness  for 
ever"  (Jude,  verse  13) — this  was  and  is  a  thought 
of  comfort  and  of  awe  for  all  those  who  have 
been  called  to  be  successors  to  their  office  and 
sharers  in  their  responsibilities. 

Of  the  symbolism  of  the  candlesticks,  or 
lamps,  I  have  already  spoken.  All  that  need 
be  added  here  is  that  which  grows  out  of  the 
connection  of  the  two  symbols.  The  stars, 
shine,  each  in  its  brightness  and  its  beauty,  and 
if  true  to  the  light  given  them,  will  shine  for 
ever  as  gems  upon  the  right  hand  of  the  Lord 
of  the  Churches.     But  to  give  light  to  those 

5 


50  Introductory. 

that  are  in  the  house  (Matt.  v.  15),  to  diffuse 
the  knowledge  of  the  truth  by  word  and  yet 
more  by  act,  to  derive  their  power  thus  to  let 
their  light  shine  before  men  from  Him  who  gives 
the  oil  without  which  the  light  would  be  extin- 
guished—  these  attributes  of  the  life  of  the 
Church  were  better  represented  by  the  lamps 
that  shed  their  rays  through  the  surrounding 
darkness.  In  the  gloom  of  this  world's  night  the 
light  of  the  lamp  is  more  serviceable  to  those  who 
have  to  live  and  move  and  work  in  it  than  the 
shining  of  the  far-off  star.  It  is  the  collective 
action  of  the  Christian  society  that  makes 
manifest  the  Truth  of  God  even  more  than  the 
highest  individual  holiness.  That  the  Lord  was 
seen  in  the  midst  of  the  seven  lamps  was  a 
witness  that  they  too  were  subject  to  his  rule 
-and  were  not  exempted  from  his  care. 


II. 

THE  EPISTLE  TO  EPHBSUS, 


THE  REVELATION. 

CHAPTER   II. 

1  Unto  the  angel  of  the  church  of  Ephesus  write  ;  These  things 
saith  he  that  holdeth  the  seven  stars  in  his  right  hand,  who  walketh 
in  the  midst  of  the  seven  golden  candlesticks  ; 

2  I  know  thy  works,  and  thy  labour,  and  thy  patience,  and  how 
thou  canst  not  bear  them  which  are  evil :  and  thou  hast  tried  them 
which  say  they  are  apostles,  and  are  not,  and  hast  found  them  liars  : 

3  And  hast  borne,  and  hast  patience,  and  for  my  name's  sake  hast 
laboured,  and  hast  not  fainted. 

4  Nevertheless  I  have  somewhat  against  thee,  because  thou  hast 
left  thy  first  love. 

5  Remember  therefore  from  whence  thou  art  fallen,  and  repent, 
and  do  the  first  works  ;  or  else  I  will  come  unto  thee  quickly,  and 
will  remove  thy  candlestick  out  of  his  place,  except  thou  repent. 

6  But  this  thou  hast,  that  thou  hatest  the  deeds  of  the  Nicolai- 
tanes,  which  I  also  hate. 

7  He  that  hath  an  ear,  let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit  saith  unto  the 
churches  ;  To  him  that  overcometh  will  I  give  to  eat  of  the  tree  of 
life,  which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  paradise  of  God. 


II. 

WITH  the  topography  of  the  city  of 
Ephesus,  with  its  history  prior  to  the 
formation  of  a  Christian  Church  within  its 
walls,  we  are  not  at  present  concerned.^  They 
have  hardly  the  slightest  appreciable  bearing 
upon  the  interpretation  of  the  words  which 
now  come  before  us.  All  that  we  need  to  re- 
member is  that  its  far-famed  Temple  of  Artemis 
— visited  by  pilgrims  from  all  quarters  of  the 
Empire,  who  carried  away  with  them  on  their 
departure  the  silver  shrines  made  by  Demetrius 
and  his  craftsmen  as  memorials  of  their  visit ; 
surrounded  by  a  population  of  priests,  guides, 
artisans,  who  by  that  craft  had  their  living — 
made  it  one  of  the  great  centres  of  Heathenism  ; 
and  that  when  St.  Paul  and  his  companions, 

^  I  may,  perhaps,  be  permitted  to  refer  the  reader  who  wishes 
for  information  on  these  points  to  a  small  book — one  of  a  series 
on  "  St.  Paul's  Work  in  the  great  Heathen  Centres  " — on  Tarsus, 
Antioch,  and  Ephesus,  published  by  the  Society  for  Promoting 
Christian  Knowledge. 


54  The  Epistle  to  Ephesus, 

following  in  the  footsteps  of  Apollos,  planted 
the  Church  of  Christ  there,  they  must  have 
felt  that  they  were  gaining  a  victory  over  one 
of  the  strongholds  of  the  powers  of  darkness. 
Its  religion  was,  however,  ver}^  largely  Oriental 
rather  than  Hellenic  in  its  character.  The  image 
of  the  many-breasted  Artemis  who  was  there 
worshipped,  which  was  fabled  to  have  fallen 
from  heaven,  looking  to  our  eyes  like  an  Indian 
idol,  would  have  offended  the  cultivated  taste  of 
an  Athenian,  accustomed  to  gaze  on  the  works 
of  Phidias  and  Praxiteles.  As  in  all  Eastern 
cities,  its  people  dealt  much  in  magic  and 
charms  and  incantations,  and  the  Ephesian 
talismans,  or  "  books  of  curious  arts"  (ihe'ypd^- 
iiara  'E(f)€aLa  of  Greek  writers),  had  a  world- 
wide renown,  and  fetched  an  almost  fabulous 
price  (Acts  xix.  19).  There,  as  in  most  com- 
mercial cities,  Jews  had  found  their  way  in 
large  numbers,  and  had  their  synagogues  open 
to  proselytes  and  inquirers.  Not  a  few  of  them 
drifted  more  or  less  openly  into  connection  with 
the  superstitions  against  which  they  ought  to. 
have  borne  their  witness.  They  were  copper- 
smiths, like  Alexander  (2  Tim.  iv.  14),  and  had 
apparently  trade  relations  with  the  workmen 
of  Demetrius  {Ads  xix.  38).  They  boasted 
of  their  powers  in  the  cases  commonly  ascribed 


The  Epistle  to  Ephestts.  55 

to  demoniacal  possession,  and,  like  the  seven 
sons  of  Sceva,  who  claimed  to  be  in  some  sense 
a  chief  priest  of  the  house  of  Aaron,  sought 
gain  and  fame  as  exorcists  (Acts  xix.  13-16). 
In  spite  of  this  decline  from  their  true  dignity, 
perhaps  in  proportion  to  it,  they  were  con- 
spicuous for  their  fanatic  zeal  for  holy  places 
and  for  holy  customs,  and  were  the  first  to 
raise  their  outcry  against  St.  Paul  when,  as 
they  thought,  he  had  taken  an  uncircumcised 
Ephesian  within  the  precincts  of  the  temple, 
beyond  the  wall  of  partition,  which  it  was  death 
for  any  Gentile  to  pass  (Acts  xxi.  27,  21). 

The  stages  of  progress  in  the  Christian 
community  at  Ephesus  may  be  traced  with 
sufficient  distinctness.  First,  there  had  been 
the  preaching  of  some  disciples  of  the  Baptist, 
reviving  the  zeal  of  the  Jews,  calling  them  to 
repentance,  imposing  more  rigid  rules  of  life 
(Acts  xix.  3).  Then  had  come  Apollos  himself, 
as  yet  knowing  only  the  baptism  of  John,  but 
with  wider  thoughts,  and  teaching  more  fully 
than  they  had  done  the  "  first  principles  of  the 
oracles  of  God"  (Heb.  v.  12).  Then  had  come 
Aquila  and  Priscilla,  with  their  more  perfect 
knowledge,  teaching  the  way  of  the  Lord  as  St. 
Paul  taught  it,  though,  we  must  believe,  with 
less  power  and  completeness  (Acts  xviii.  24). 


56  The  Epistle  to  Ep  he  sits. 

Then  St.  Paul  himself  appeared,  preaching  his 
gospel,  at  first  in  the  synagogues  to  his  own 
people  of  the  stock  of  Abraham,  afterwards  to 
the  disciples  and  to  Gentile  inquirers  as  a 
separate  body  in  the  lecture-room  (belonging, 
possibly,  to  a  school  of  medicine)  that  was 
known  as  the  property  of  Tyrannus.^  Wonders 
of  a  kind  precisely  adapted  to  meet  the  faith 
of  the  Ephesians  in  charms  and  talismans 
were  wrought  by  his  hands,  and  even  by  the 
handkerchiefs  and  aprons  to  which  contact 
with  his  flesh  had  imparted  a  mysterious  power 
(Acts  xix.  9-12).  The  result  of  this  two-fold 
influence  was  the  rapid  conversion  of  a  large 
number  of  the  Heathen,  chiefly  among  those 
who  had  been  practitioners  in  the  arts  of  sorcery. 
They  brought  the  books  in  which  they  had 
learnt  to  see  the  work  of  the  enemy  of  God, 
and  burnt  them  publicly  in  some  open  square 
or  market-place  (Acts  xix.  19).  How  full  and 
thorough  was  the  success  of  the  Apostle  in  his 

^  The  name  Tyrannus  occurs  in  the  "  Columbarium  "  of  Livia 
as  belonging  to  a  physician  of  the  Imperial  household.  Such 
occupations  often  descended,  with  the  name,  from  father  to  son 
among  the  freedmen  attached  to  the  Imperial  household ;  and 
I  venture  to  surmise  that  this  Tyrannus  also  was  of  the  same 
calling,  that  the  "beloved  physician  "  who  was  St.  Paul's  friend 
and  fellow-worker  may  have  been  acquainted  with  him,  and 
that  it  was  through  his  influence  that  the  use  of  the  lecture-room 
was  obtained. 


The  Epistle  to  Ephesus.  57 

mission-work  among  his  new  disciples,  how 
rapid  the  progress  which  they  made  in  Chris- 
tian thought  and  feeUng,  we  find  from  his 
earnest  desire  to  see  the  elders  of  the  Ephesian 
Church  on  his  last  journey  to  Jerusalem,  even 
though  he  could  not  personally  visit  their  city, 
and  from  the  words  of  parting  counsel  which 
he  addressed  to  them.  He  who  spake  to  others 
as  to  carnal,  as  to  babes  in  Christ,  had  not 
shunned  to  preach  to  them  "  all  the  counsel  of 
God"  (Acts  XX.  27).  In  the  midst  of  constant 
opposition,  with  the  fear  of  frequent  plots,  amid 
tears  and  trials,  he  had  done  his  work.  But  even 
then  his  eye  saw  signs  of  evils  as  yet  half  latent : 
"  the  grievous  wolves  not  sparing  the  flock," 
Jewish  persecutors  from  without,  the  "  men 
from  among  their  ownselves  speaking  perverse 
things,"  who  should  draw  away  disciples  after 
them — these  filled  him  with  anxious  and  sad 
forebodings.  And  so  they  parted,  as  they  both 
then  thought,  never  to  meet  again  (Acts  xx. 
17-38). 

So  far  as  we  can  gather  from  the  Epistle 
to  the  Ephesians,  no  tidings  had  reached  the 
Apostle  in  the  interval  to  cause  him  fresh 
anxiety.  Its  tone  is  throughout  free  from  the 
indignation  or  warning  or  reproof  which  we 
find  in  so  many  of  his  letters.     He  remembers 


58  The  Epistle  to  Ephesus. 

his  intercourse  with  them  with  thankfulness 
and  joy.  He  has  heard  of  their  faith  in  the 
Lord  Jesus  and  their  love  towards  all  saints. 
He  appeals  to  them  as  able  to  understand  his 
knowledge  in  the  mystery  of  Christ.  No  mes- 
senger has  come  from  them,  as  Epaphras  had 
come  from  Colossse,  to  tell  him  that  false 
teachers  had  crept  in  and  were  subverting  the 
gospel  which  he  had  preached.  He  must  have 
looked  forward  to  his  return  to  them — and  we 
know  from  the  letter  to  Philemon  (verse  22)  that 
he  wa^  looking  forward  —  with  joy  and  hope. 
The  Pastoral  Epistles,  if  we  accept  them  as  St. 
Paul  s,  and  place  them  in  their  right  relation  to 
his  life,  shew  us  how  bitterly  he  was  disappointed. 
False  teachers  had  come,  claiming  the  authority 
of  Rabbis,  desirous  to  be  teachers  of  the  Law, 
and  >et  ignorant  of  its  true  scope  and  office 
(i  Tin.  i.  7).  There  were  perverse  disputings 
of  men  of  corrupt  minds,  having  a  form  of 
godliness,  but  denying  its  power;  creeping  into 
houses  and  leading  captive  silly  women  laden 
with  sins  (2  Tim.  iii.  4-7).  His  own  followers 
and  friends  had  not  the  courage  to  stand  by 
him,  and  all  men  forsook  him  (2  Tim.  i.  15). 
It  was  necessary  to  leave  Timotheus  behind 
him  to  maintain  purity  of  doctrine  and  com- 
pleteness of  organisation.    And  even  he,  zealous 


The  Epistle  to  Ephesus,  59 

and  devoted  as  he  was,  seemed  hardly  equal  to 
the  burden  that  was  thus  laid  upon  him.  He 
was  too  young  to  speak  with  the  authority  of 
a  wide  experience,  younger  than  many  of  those 
whom  he  was  called  to  control  and  to  reprove. 
He  was  weak  in  health,  and  the  overstrained 
asceticism  which  he  had  imposed  on  himself 
as  a  rule  of  life  tended  to  want  of  promptness 
and  of  energy  (i  Tim.  v.  23).  He  needed,  even 
in  the  last  parting  words  of  counsel  which  St. 
Paul  ever  wrote  to  him,  to  be  stirred  to  fresh 
activity,  to  be  warned  against  the  spirit  of 
timidity  that  shrinks  from  hardship  and  from 
conflict,  against  the  profane  and  vain  babblings 
which,  under  the  show  of  a  mystical  elevation 
that  seemed  to  men  as  a  rising  from  the  death 
of  sin,  were  denying  that  there  was  any  other 
resurrection  (2  Tim.  i.  6,  7). 

It  was  necessary  to  bring  before  our  thoughts 
what  we  know  of  the  Ephesian  Church  just  as  the 
great  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  was  about  to  pass 
from  the  scene  of  his  labours,  that  so  we  might 
the  better  enter  into  the  spirit  of  the  message 
sent  to  it  through  the  pen  of  the  beloved  Dis- 
ciple. The  shorter  the  interval  between  the  two 
— and,  on  the  assumption  which  I  have  adopted 
as  to  the  date  of  the  Apocalypse,  the  interval 
must   have  been  very  short — the    closer   must 


6o  The  Epistle  to  Ephesus. 

have  been  the  resemblance  between  the  state  of 
things  described  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles  and 
that  pre-supposed  in  the  message  with  which 
we  are  now  dealing.  But  the  facts  lead  us,  if 
I  mistake  not,  to  a  conclusion  of  deeper  and 
more  personal  interest.  Timotheus  had  been 
left  in  charge  of  that  Church.  That  was  the 
flock  committed  to  him  as  one  of  the  chief 
shepherds.  If  we  think  of  the  Angel  of  the 
Church  of  Ephesus  as  its  personal  ruler  and 
representative,  there  is  at  least  a  strong  pre- 
sumption in  favour  of  our  thinking  of  the  words 
before  us  as  addressed  to  none  other  than  to 
St.  Paul's  true  son  in  the  faith.  It  will  be 
seen  that  a  closer  examination  of  the  message 
confirms  this  conclusion. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  each  one  of  the  mes- 
sages opens  with  a  description  of  Him  who 
speaks  them,  embodying  one  or  more  of  the 
characteristic  attributes  given  in  the  preceding 
chapter.  It  is,  perhaps,  impossible  to  connect 
in  each  case  the  attribute  thus  selected  w^ith 
the  wants  or  trials  of  each  particular  Church ; 
but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  as  Ephesus 
stands  first  in  order  of  importance  among  the 
Seven  Churches,  and  so  the  fact  that  He  who 
sends  the  message  *'  holdeih  the  seven  stars  in 
his  right  hand''  and  ''walketh  in  the  midst  of  the 


The  Epistle  to  Ephesus.  6i 

seven  golden  candlesticks,''  is  that  on  which 
most  stress  is  laid.  He  holds  the  stars  as  one 
who  rejoices  in  their  brightness  so  long  as  they 
shine  clearly,  who  sustains,  protects,  and  guides 
them  as  He  guides  the  stars  of  heaven  in  their 
courses,  who  can  and  will  cast  them  away, 
even  though  they  were  as  the  signet  on  His 
right  hand,  should  they  cease  to  shine.  He 
walks  among  the  candlesticks  as  One  who 
knows  and  judges  all  that  makes  the  lamps 
burn  brightly  or  dimly,  who  feeds  the  lamp 
with  the  oil  of  His  grace,  and  trims  it  with  the 
discipline  of  His  love  that  it  may  burn  more 
brightly,  and  who,  if  it  cease  to  burn,  though 
He  will  not  quench  the  smoking  flax  while  as 
yet  there  is  a  hope  of  revival,  will  yet  remove 
the  lamp  out  of  its  place,  and  give  to  another 
that  work  of  giving  light  to  those  that  are  in 
His  spiritual  house,  which  it  has  failed  to 
accomplish. 

If  I  am  right  in  my  inference  from  the 
assumed  early  date  of  the  Apocalypse,  the 
words  that  follow  ought  to  present  some  strik- 
ing points  of  coincidence  with  the  language 
addressed  to  Timothy  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles ; 
and  this,  if  I  mistake  not,  they  do  in  a  measure 
which  leaves  hardly  the  shadow  of  a  doubt. 
The   work,  the   labour,   the   endurance — these 


62  The  Epistle  to  Ephesus, 

are  precisely  what  St.  Paul  acknowledges  in 
his  true  son  in  the  faith,  and  exhorts  him  to 
abound  in  them  more  and  more.  He  reminds 
him  that  the  husbandman  that  lahoureth  must 
be  the  first  partaker  of  the  fruits  (2  Tim.  ii.  6) ; 
calls  on  him  to  be  "  a  workman  that  needeth 
not  to  be  ashamed"  (2  Tim.  ii.  15);  to  do 
*' the  work  of  an  evangelist,"  and  to  ^^  endure 
afflictions  "  (2  Tim.  iv.  5).  Still  more  definitely 
do  we  find  in  the  words  of  praise  that  follow 
that  which  corresponds  to  the  Apostle's  coun- 
sels. With  reiterated  earnestness  we  find  him 
warning  his  true  son  in  the  faith  against  false 
teachers,  such  as  Hymenseus,  Alexander,  Phi- 
letus  ;  against  those  who  gave  heed  to  seducing 
spirits  and  doctrines  of  demons ;  against  pro- 
fane and  vain  babblings,  whether  they  came 
from  Judaizing  teachers  on  the  one  hand  or 
the  fantastic  dreams  of  Greek  or  Gnostic 
speculation  on  the  other.  One  who  had  acted 
on  these  cautions  might  well  have  earned  the 
commendation  bestowed  on  the  Angel  of  the 
Church  of  Ephesus:  '''Thou  canst  not  hear 
them  that  are  evil,  and  thott  hast  tried  them 
which  say  that  they  are  apostles  and  are  not, 
but  hast  found  them  liars.'"  To  hate  evil,  to 
feel  the  presence  of  those  who  are  persistent  in 
it  as  an  intolerable  burden,  to  try  the  claims  of 


The  Epistle  to  Ephesus.  63 

those  who  used  great  names  to  cloke  it,  by 
some  certain  test,  like  that  which  St.  Paul 
(i  Cor.  xii.  3)  and  St.  John  himself,  here  also 
agreeing  with  his  brother  apostle,  had  else- 
where suggested  (i  John  iv.  2,  3),  by  their 
agreement  with  the  truth  on  which  the  faith  of 
the  Church  rested,  that  Christ  Jesus  had  come 
in  the  flesh ;  this  was  no  small  work  to  have 
done,  no  light  praise  to  have  deserved. 

The  question  who  these  teachers  were,  who 
said  they  were' apostles  and  were  not,  is  not 
one  which  can  be  answered  with  any  certainty. 
Doubtless  the  leaders  of  every  sect  and  heresy 
at  the  opposite  poles  of  error  were  in  the  habit 
of  putting  forth  such  claims.  The  balance  of 
probability  inclines,  I  think,  in  favour  of  the 
view  that  they  were  not  identical  with  those 
who  are  afterwards  named  as  Nicolaitanes,  and 
that  they  represent  the  leaders  of  the  Judaizing 
anti-Pauline  party  in  the  Asiatic  Churches. 
These,  we  know,  claimed  to  be  apostles,  either 
of  Christ  himself  or  of  the  Church  at  Jerusalem, 
with  special  and  extraordinary  powers,  the 
"very  chiefest  apostles''  of  2  Cor.  xii.  11.  Of 
these  St.  Paul  speaks  as  "  false  apostles,,  deceit- 
ful workers,"  doing  the  work  of  Satan,  and  yet 
disguised  as  angels  of  light  (2  Cor.  xi.  13,  14). 
Those  who  followed  him  with  ceaseless  hostility 


64  The  Epistle  to  Ephesus. 

in  Galatia,  Corinth,  Philippi,  and  Colossse  were 
hardly  likely  to  leave  Ephesus  untouched  ;  and 
it  is  noticeable  that  among  the  errors  against 
which  his  warning  is  most  earnest  in  the 
Pastoral  Epistles,  those  which  are  Jewish  and 
legal  occupy  the  foremost  place  (i  Tim.  i.  7  ; 
Tit.  i.  14).  Those  who  do  not  come  to  the 
study  of  the  Apocalypse  with  a  preconceived 
theory  that  it  is  an  anti-Pauline  polemic,  will 
find  a  confirmation  of  this  view  in  the  corres- 
ponding words  in  the  message  to  the  Church 
of  Smyrna  against  those  "who  say  that  they 
are  Jews,  and  are  not,  but  are  of  the  synagogue 
of  Satan  "  (Rev.  ii.  9). 

The  words  that  follow,  though  they  seem  for 
the  most  part  to  repeat  the  praise  already  given, 
present  some  special  points  of  interest.  Then 
the  Angel  of  the  Church  had  been  praised 
because  he  could  not  hear  the  evil  workers. 
Now  he  is  commended  because  he  has  home 
so  much.  To  be  intolerant  of  evil,  and  to  be 
tolerant  of  all  besides,  to  hear  the  burdens  of 
other  men  (Gal.  vi.  2),  their  weaknesses,  or 
coldness,  or  inattention,  to  hear  also  the 
burden  and  heat  of  the  day, — all  this  belongs 
to  the  true  pastor.  In  this  way  he  hears  the 
cross  which  his  Lord  bore  before  him.  And 
with    this   there    is    the    renewed    mention    of 


The  Epistle  to  Ephestis.  65 

''  endurance,"  not  simply  the  passive  resigna- 
tion to  suffering  which  we  commonly  associate 
with  the  word  "  patience,"  but  the  temper  of 
calm  heroic  stedfastness  which  belongs  to  him 
"  who  endureth  to  the  end,"  and  therefore  wins 
his  ultimate  and  complete  deliverance  from  evil. 
And  this  endurance  has  been  for  the  name  of 
Christ,  and  has  shewn  itself  in  many  labours 
(note  the  use  of  the  self-same  word  as  in 
I  Tim.  V.  17 ;  2  Tim,  ii.  6)  which  have  not, 
arduous  as  they  were,  led  to  weariness  or  sloth. ^ 
It  was  significant,  as  a  token  of  the  gentle- 
ness and  tenderness  of  the  Judge,  that  all  that 
was  good  should  be  fully  acknowledged  first, 
and  that  not  till  then  should  the  evil  that 
threatened  its  completeness  be  noticed  with 
words  of  warning.  That,  we  may  note,  is  ever 
the  true  method  of  those  who  enter  in  any 
measure  into  the  mind  of  Christ.  Every 
Epistle  of  St.  Paul  (with,  perhaps,  the  solitary 
exception  of  that  to  the  Galatians,  where  the 

^  The  various  readings  require  a  word  of  notice.  The  greater 
uncial  Manuscripts  give  ovk  tKOTriacrag,  or  vv  KSKOTriaicag. 
"Thou  hast  not  toiled,"  and  nothing  more.  The  seeming 
difficulty  of  this  use  of  the  verb,  as  a  word  of  prais^,  led  (i)  to 
the  omission  of  the  negative,  and  then  (2)  to  the  insertion  of 
"thou  hast  not  fainted,"  by  way  of  expressing  the  original 
thought  more  clearly.  Taking  the  above  reading  we  must 
understand  it  as  if  it  were,  "  Thou  hast  not  toiled  wearily," 
i  e.  "  hast  not  felt  thy  labour  to  be  a  toil. " 
6 


66  The  Epistle  to  Ephesus. 

need  was  urgent  and  the  peril  great)  is  a 
practical  illustration  of  it.  The  thought  that 
He  with  whom  we  have  to  do  as  at  once  Judge 
and  Friend  and  Advocate,  judges  us  after  this 
manner,  not  closing  His  e3'es  to  any  evil  that  He 
discerns  in  us,  but  also  not  extreme  to  mark 
what  is  done  amiss,  and  recognising  the  good 
He  has  enabled  us  to  do  even  more  fully  than 
we  ourselves  can  recognise  it,  is  one  which  may 
well  come  to  the  minister  of  Christ  in  times 
when  his  spirit  droops  within  him  and  he  has 
misgivings  as  to  his  labours  and  their  result, 
with  a  power  to  strengthen  and  ennoble. 

The  special  nature  of  the  fault  reproved  is,  I 
believe,  entirely  in  accordance  with  the  view 
which  I  have  taken  as  to  the  person  who  was 
thus  addressed.  No  one  can  read  the  Epistles 
to  Timothy  without  feeling  that,  in  the  midst 
of  all  St.  Paul's  love  for  his  disciple,  his  recog- 
nition of  his  loyalty,  purity,  earnestness,  there 
is  a  latent  tone  of  anxiety.  The  nature  with 
which  he  had  to  do  was  emotional  even  to  tears 
(2  Tim.  i.  4),  ascetic  (i  Tim.  v.  23),  devout 
(2  Tim.  i.  5) ;  but  there  was  in  it  a  tendency 
to  lack  of  energy  and  sustained  enthusiasm. 
To  supply  this  defect  he  exhorts  him  once  and 
again  to  be  strong,  and  to  endure  hardness ;  to 
stir  up,   i.e,    to   rekindle   (dva^coirvpelp,  2   Tim. 


The  Epistle  to  Ephesus.  67 

i.  6),  the  grace  of  God ;  to  continue  in  the 
things  he  had  learnt,  knowing  of  whom  he  had 
learnt  them  (2  Tim.  iii.  14).  Such  an  one  falls 
easily  into  labours  that  are  genuine  as  far  as 
they  go,  and  yet  are  not  pervaded  by  the  fervour 
and  energy  of  love.  Whether  the  "  first  love  " 
is  that  which  has  God,  or  Christ,  or  man  for  its 
object,  I  am  not  careful  to  inquire ;  for  the 
true  temper  of  love  or  charity  includes  all  three; 
but  it  is  more  important  to  insist  that  the  defect 
spoken  of  was  one  which  attached  to  the  angel 
or  bishop  of  the  Church  personally,  and  only  to 
the  Church  at  large  so  far  as  it  was  represented 
by  him  and  influenced  by  his  example.  The 
*' first  love"  which  had  been  *' left "  was 
accordingly  not  that  of  the  bride  for  the  bride- 
groom of  her  espousal,  as  in  Jeremiah  ii.  2, 
but  rather  that  of  the  friend  of  the  bridegroom, 
loving  and  unselfish,  whose  work  it  was,  the 
work  which  St.  Paul  had  claimed  as  his  own  in 
writing  to  the  Corinthians,  to  bring  the  bride 
to  her  betrothed  and,  with  loving  care,  to  guard 
her  from  defilement  (2  Cor.  xi.  2,  3). 

It  has  been  urged,  on  the  assumption  that 
the  words  point  only  or  chiefly  to  the  short- 
comings of  the  Church  of  Ephesus  as  distinct 
from  its  ruler,  that  they  supply  an  almost 
decisive  proof  of  the  theory  which  assigns  the 
6* 


68  The  Epistle  to  Ephesus. 

Apocalypse  to  the  time  of  Domitian.^  The 
change,  it  is  said,  is  too  great,  the  falling  away 
from  the  first  love  too  complete,  to  have  taken 
place  in  any  shorter  interval.  I  cannot  but 
think  (i)  that  the  personal  reference  for  which 
I  have  contended  is  open  to  no  such  objection ; 
ind  (2)  that,  even  on  the  assumption  of  there 
being  a  reference,  direct  or  indirect,  to  the 
condition  of  the  Ephesian  Church,  those  who 
lay  stress  on  this  objection  have  dwelt  too 
much  on  the  bright  side  of  the  picture  presented 
in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  and  too  little 
on  those  darker  features  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  were  already  coming  into  prominence 
before  the  ministry  of  St.  Paul  had  reached  its 
close.  What  we  meet  with  here  is  certainly 
not  otherwise  than  consistent  with  the  warnings 
and  the  fears,  the  all  but  total  desertion,  and 
the  thickening  heresies  which  the  Pastoral 
Epistles  bring  before  us.  If  anything,  it  indi- 
cates something  even  of  a  revival,  partial 
though  not  complete,  from  the  state  there  por- 
trayed ;  and  we  may  legitimately  connect  that 
revival,  both  as  regards  the  Church  and  its 
representative,  with  the  parting  counsels  of  the 
Apostle. 

The  warnings  and  the  counsels  which  follow 

*  Archbishop  Trench,  "  Seven  Churches,"  p.  73. 


The  Epistle  to  Ephesus,  69 

on  this  reproof  have  a  deep  ethical  significance. 
*'  Remember^  therefore^  from  whence  thou  art 
fallen;  and  repent,  and  do  the  first  works.'' 
The  words  bring  before  our  thoughts  one  of 
the  functions  of  the  awful  gifts  of  memory  in 
the  spiritual  education  of  the  individual  soul. 
As  it  is  true, — 

"That  a  sorrow's  crown  of  sorrow  is  remembei-ing 
happier  things," 

SO  also  is  it  true  that  the  first  step  towards 
repentance  is  to  call  to  mind,  distinctly  and 
vividly,  the  highest  moments  that  we  have 
known  in  our  religious  experience.  There  may 
come  a  time  when  that  will  be  the  sharpest 
pang  of  a  sorrow  almost  or  altogether  hopeless, 
when  the  recollection  that  we  have  been  illu- 
mined, and  tasted  of  the  heavenly  gift  and  the 
powers  of  the  world  to  come  (Heb.  vi.  4,  5),  will 
but  make  us  feel  more  bitterly  the  difficulty  or 
impossibility  of  renewal.  But,  short  of  that,  the 
memory  of  the  past,  however  painful,  is  yet 
remedial.  It  tells  us  of  the  blessedness  of 
which  we  have  once  been  capable,  which  we 
have  actually  attained,  and  therefore  may  attain 
again,  and  so  far  is  an  element  of  encourage- 
ment as  well  as  sorrow — of  repentance  and  not 
of  mere  remorse.  We  can  yet  look  back  upon 
the  height    which  we   once  had  reached,    and 


70  The  Epistle  to  Ephesiis. 

slowly  and  with  painful  steps  begin  to  climb 
again.  Out  of  that  memory  springs  a  true 
contrition  and  a  stedfast  effort.  And  the  counsel 
which  follows  is  precisely  that  which  meets  the 
exigencies  of  the  case.  It  may  not  be  possible 
to  renew  at  once  the  ^^ first  love.'"  The  old 
fervour  and  enthusiasm  of  faith  will  not  come 
back  at  our  bidding  or  our  wish.  We  must 
take  that  which,  so  long  as  we  retain  our  power 
to  choose,  does  lie  within  our  reach,  and  do  the 
^^ first  works'' — in  this  case  those  very  works 
on  which  the  Lord  of  the  Churches  had  already 
bestowed  his  praise  ;  and  then,  in  due  time,  the 
warmth  will  come  back  to  the  heart  which,  in 
spite  even  of  its  own  coldness,  has  persevered 
in  duty.  It  is  possible,  though  there  is  no 
virtue  without  faith,  to  gain  faith  by  virtue. 
It  is  possible,  in  like  manner,  to  regain  the  first 
love  by  doing  the  first  works. 

The  call  to  repentance  is  followed  by  a 
warning,  —  "Or  else  I  will  come  unto  thee 
quickly ^  and  will  remove  thy  candlestick  out  of 
its  placey  except  thou  repents  The  words  shew 
that  the  **  coming  of  the  Lord  "  had  gained  a 
wider  and,  in  some  sense,  deeper  meaning  than 
that  which  we  commonly  attach  to  the  second 
advent.  That  to  which  the  warning  points  is 
not  the  great  far-off  event  fixed  in  the  everlasting 


The  Epistle  to  Ephesus.  71 

counsels,  but  the  Judgment-day  of  the  language 
of  the  Old  Testament,  the  "day  of  the  Lord," 
whose  coming  may  be  averted  or  delayed  by 
repentance,  hastened  by  impenitence  and  defi- 
ance. Such  days  of  the  Lord  come,  in  the 
course  of  the  world's  history,  on  all  nations  and 
churches  that  are  faithless  to  their  trust.  The 
judgment  lingers,  the  wheels  of  the  Lord's 
chariot  tarry,  and  men  eat  and  drink,  plant  and 
build,  marry  and  are  given  in  marriage,  as 
though  all  things  would  go  on  as  they  are  for 
ever,  and  then  He  ''^  comes  quickly,'"  in  one  or 
other  of  the  sore  judgments  which  are  sent  as 
the  chastisment  of  their  want  of  faith  and  their 
evil  deeds.  Here  the  judgment  threatened  was 
determined  by  the  symbolism  of  the  vision.  The 
lamp  was  not  burning  brightly.  If  it  were 
rekindled  and  trimmed  and  fed  with  oil,  well. 
If  not,  there  would  come  on  it  the  sentence 
which  falls  on  all  unfaithfulness,  and  the  lamp 
should  be  removed.  The  Church  which  had 
not  let  its  light  shine  before  men  would  lose 
even  its  outward  form  and  polity,  and  be  as 
though  it  had  never  been. 

The  Church  and  its  ruler  are  here,  in  some 
measure  at  least,  identified.  Unless  he  repents 
and  does  the  first  works,  the  society  over  which 
he  rules,  and  which  is  represented  by  him,  will 


72  The  Epistle  to  Ephesus. 

suffer  the  penalty  which  attaches  to  the  failure 
of  faith  and  love  in  which  it  has  been  a  sharer. 
So  it  is  always  in  the  history  of  nations  and  of 
churches.  But  it  would,  I  believe,  be  an  error 
to  think  of  the  warning  and  the  exhortations  as 
addressed  simply  to  the  Church  as  such,  and 
not  to  the  angel  or  ruler  individually.  Much 
rather  is  it  true  that  this  is  urged  upon  his 
conscience  as  a  motive  to  lead  him  to  repent- 
ance, that  his  sins,  even  though  they  are  negative 
rather  than  positive  in  their  character,  tend  to 
bring  about  that  terrible  result.  One  whose 
heart  was  in  his  work,  who  had  learnt  to  look 
on  the  Church  committed  to  him  with  a  deep 
and  anxious  tenderness,  would  feel  that  to  be 
a  greater  penalty  than  any  personal  chastise- 
ment. To  have  the  blood  of  souls  that  perished 
required  at  his  hand,  to  see  his  work  destroyed, 
even  though  he  himself  should  be  saved,  so  as 
by  fire,  to  lose  that  to  which  he  had  looked 
forward  as  his  joy  and  crown  of  rejoicing, — 
this  was  and  is  the  penalty  of  the  shepherd 
who  is  even  partially  unfaithful,  who  has  ''^  left 
his  first  love.''  For  those  who  fill  high  places 
to  see  systems  collapsing,  an  organisation  dis- 
organised, polity  giving  way  to  anarchy ;  for 
those  who  have  a  lower  work  to  perceive  that 
they  are  not  gaining,  but  losing,  ground,  that 


The  Epistle  to  Ephesus.  73 

worshippers  are  scattered  and  listeners  few,  and 
that  their  own  want  of  love  infects  their  people 
— this  is  the  penalty,  as  by  an  inevitable  law, 
of  their  transgression.  That  over  which  they 
have  not  watched  is  "  decaying  and  waxing  old." 
The  next  stage  of  *'  vanishing  away,"  the  re- 
moval of  the  candlestick,  is  not  far  distant. 

I  am  not  disposed  to  dwell,  as  most  com- 
mentators have  done,  on  the  present  desolate 
condition  of  the  town  of  Agio-solouk,  which 
represents  by  a  few  scattered  huts  what  was 
once  the  Ephesus  of  world-wide  fame,  as  shew- 
ing that  the  warning  was  neglected  and  that  the 
penalty  at  last  came.  Doubtless  that  condition 
illustrates  the  working  of  the  law  which  was 
proclaimed  in  the  message  as  a  prophecy,  in  the 
higher  sense  of  that  word  ;  but  the  time  which 
elapsed  before  the  decay  and  ruin  were  brought 
about  carries  us  too  far  beyond  the  horizon 
indicated  by  that  "coming  quickly"  for  us  to 
look  upon  it  as  the  distinct  fulfilment  of  a  pre- 
diction. Rather  may  we  see  such  a  fulfilment 
under  its  brighter  aspects  in  the  fact  that  when 
we  next  come  across  traces  of  the  spiritual 
condition  of  the  Church  of  Ephesus  it  is  to 
recognise  a  marked  change  for  the  better,  a 
revival  of  the  old  energy  of  life  and  love. 
When  Ignatius  addressed   his   Epistle  to  that 


74  The  Epistle  to  Ep/iestis. 

Church,  about  half  a  century  after  what  we 
have  assumed  as  the  date  of  the  Apocalypse,  he 
found  it  under  the  care  of  an  Onesimus  (whether 
the  runaway  slave  of  Colossae  or  another  of  the 
same  name,  we  cannot  say),  and  abounding  in 
spiritual  excellences.  It  gives  proof  of  a  ful- 
filment of  prophecy  of  another  kind  than  that 
commonly  dwelt  on  to  find  that  the  mes- 
sage had  done  its  work.  The  points  on  which 
the  Martyr  touches  are  in  singular  harmony 
with  the  counsel  given  in  the  message  now 
before  us.  That  in  which  he  rejoiced  was  that 
the  believers  at  Ephesus  and  their  bishop  "  had 
rekindled  their  life  "  {ava^coirvptjaavre^,  the  self- 
same word  as  in  2  Tim.  i.  6)  "in  the  blood  of 
God," — that  no  sect  or  heresy  was  found  among 
them.  They  "  had  not  suffered  those  who 
came  bringing  an  evil  doctrine  to  sow  their  tares 
among  the  wheat,  but  had  closed  their  ears 
against  them."  They  carried  God  and  Christ 
in  their  hearts,  and  so  became  as  temples  ;  they 
were  Theophoriy  Chnstophori,  Naophori.  And  so 
the  sentence  was  at  least  deferred,  and  for 
many  a  long  year  the  candlestick  was  not 
removed,  and  the  Church  of  Ephesus,  which 
had  thus  been  warned,  took  its  place  in  the 
history  of  the  Church  Catholic  as  bearing  its 
witness,    in    the    third     Qj^cumenical     Council 


The  Epistle  to  Ephesus,  75 

(a.d.  431),  to  the  great  central  truth  on  which 
St.  Paul  and  Ignatius  {ad  Ephes.  c.  9),  had 
alike  laid  stress,  that  "  God  was  manifested  in 
the  flesh." 

And  then  once  more,  and  as  pointing  to  that 
which  was  a  gleam  of  hope  even  amidst  the 
symptoms  of  decay  that  had  called  for  the  word 
of  warning,  there  came  words  of  recognition 
and  of  praise.  "  This  thou  hast,  that  thou  hatest 
the  deeds  of  the  Nicolaitanes,  which  I  also 
hate/'  The  questions  who  these  Nicolaitanes 
were,  whence  they  took  their  name,  what  were 
their  hateful  deeds,  are,  I  need  scarcely  say, 
among  the  vexed  problems  of  the  history  of  the 
apostolic  age,  for  the  solution  of  which  we 
have  no  satisfying  data.  On  the  one  side 
there  is  the  Patristic,  but  by  no  means  primi- 
tive, tradition  that  the  Proselyte  of  Antioch, 
whose  name  appears  in  the  list  of  the  Seven  in 
Acts  vi.  5,  had  either  himself  fallen  away  from 
the  faith,  or  had  by  unguarded  words  given 
occasion  of  offence  to  those  that  followed  him  ; 
that  he  had  taught  men  to  abuse  (7rapa')(^priadac) 
the  flesh  in  the  sense  of  punishing  and  afflicting 
it,  and  that  men  had  taken  the  word  as  mean- 
ing that  they  might  use  it  to  the  full,  and 
conquer  their  appetites  by  indulging  them  till 
they  ceased  to  stimulate,  and  that  thus,  in  order 


76  The  Epistle  to  EpJiesus. 

to  shew  that  lust  had  no  power  over  them,  they 
lived  in  what  the  conscience  of  true  Christians 
condemned  as  hateful  impurities.^  On  the 
other  we  have  the  conjectures  of  modern 
critics  that  the  very  word  was  a  play  upon 
the  name  so  prominent  about  this  time  both 
in  these  very  messages  and  in  other  apostolic 
writings — the  name  of  Balaam  the  son  of  Beor, 
after  whom  many  had  gone  astray  (2  Pet.  ii.  15), 
and  had  run  greedily  (Jude,  verse  11),  who 
had  taught  Balak  to  cast  a  stum.bling-block 
before  the  children  of  Israel,  to  eat  things 
sacrificed  unto  idols  and  to  commit  fornication.^ 
The  mention  of  the  two  as  distinct,  though 
cognate  in  their  corruptions  and  impurities,  in 
the  message  to  the  Church  of  Pergamos  (Rev.  ii. 
14, 15)  seems  decisive  against  absolute  identifi- 
cation ;  and  I  incline,  with  some  doubt,  to  the 

^  See  the  articles  on  **  Nicolaos  "  and  the  "  Nicolaitanes,"  in 
Smith's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible.  The  earliest  writer  who  states 
that  the  sect  so-called  claimed  Nicolaos  the  Proselyte  as  their 
founder  is  Irengeus.  Clement  of  Alexandria  accepts  the  story  that 
his  teaching  had  been  perverted  in  the  manner  above  described. 
Epiphanius  imputes  the  corrupt  practices  of  the  sect  to  the 
actual  example  and  direct  teaching  of  their  founder. 

^  Nicolaos  ("conqueror  of  the  people")  is  identified  with 
Balaam,  according  to  one  etymology  of  the  latter  word,  as  the 
"  lord,"  according  to  another  as  the  "devourer,"  of  the  people. 
Both  derivations  are,  however,  uncertain,  and  the  best  Hebraists 
(Gesenius  and  Fiirst,  the  latter  admitting  the  possibility  of 
"  devourer  ")  explain  the  name  as  meaning,  "not  of  the  people," 
i.e. ,  an  alien  and  foreigner. 


The  hpistle  to  Ephestis,  jj 

old  Patristic  view  that  the  sect  so  described 
took  its  name,  under  some  colourable  plea, 
from  Nicolaos  the  Proselyte,  and  reserve  what 
has  to  be  said  as  to  the  error  of  Balaam 
till  we  come  to  it  in  its  own  place.  It  is 
enough  for  the  present  to  note  the  fact  that  any 
feeling  of  righteous  hatred  of  evil,  of  loathing 
for  that  which  corrupts  and  defiles,  is  welcomed 
by  the  Lord  of  the  Churches  as  a  sign  of  life. 
As  long  as  there  is  the  capacity  for  this  indig- 
nation there  is  hope.  When  this  also  fails, 
and  men  tolerate  and  accept  impurity  of  words 
and  acts, — when  conscience  is  seared,  as  with  a 
red-hot  iron,  then  the  last  sign  of  life  has  passed 
away  and  decay  and  putrescence  have  set  in. 

Lastly,  we  have  the  promise  of  reward  with 
which  this,  like  all  the  other  messages,  ends. 
Attention  is  called  to  it  in  the  self-same  words 
that  our  Lord  had  so  often  used,  almost,  it 
might  be  said,  as  a  formula  of  teaching,  in  his 
earthly  ministry :  "  Whoso  hath  ears  to  hear, 
let  him  hear"  (Matt,  xi  15  ;  xiii.  9)  ;  ''He  that 
hath  an  ear  let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit  saith 
unto  the  churches.'"  And  the  promise  in  this 
case  carries  us  back,  as  so  much  of  the  recorded 
teaching  of  St.  John  does  elsewhere,  to  the 
earliest  records  of  the  Bible,  ^ — to  the  opening 

^  See  a  Paper  on  "  The  Book  of  Genesis  and  the  Revelation 
of  St.  John,"  in  the  Bible  Educator,  vol.  i.  p.  27. 


78  The  Epistle  to  Ephesus, 

chapters  of  the  Book  of  Genesis.  '*To  him 
thai  overcometh  will  I  give  to  eat  of  the  tree 
of  lif^i  which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  paradise 
of  Godr 

We  remember,  as  we  read  the  words,  that  the 
Apostle  had  once  before  heard  that  promise  of 
"  paradise  "  from  the  hps  of  his  Lord  ;  so  far  as 
His  recorded  teaching  goes,  once,  and  once  only 
(Luke  xxiii.  43).  Both  in  the  general  absence 
of  the  word  and  in  that  solitary  use  of  it  we 
may  reverently  recognise  a  profound  wisdom, 
adapting  the  phases  under  which  it  presented 
the  truth  to  the  capacities  and  necessities  of 
those  who  were  to  be  recipients  of  it.  In  the 
popular  speech  of  Judaism,  in  the  legends 
alike  of  Pharisees  and  the  multitude  the  word 
"  paradise "  (as  now  among  the  followers  of 
Mahomet)  brought  with  it  the  imagery  of  sensu- 
ous enjoyment — of  a  region  of  fair  trees  and 
pleasant  fruits  and  clear  streams,  and  the 
soft  south-west  blowing  for  evermore.  He,  the 
Teacher,  was  leading  His  disciples  to  a  more 
spiritual  idea  of  the  blessedness  of  the  life  to 
come— say,  rather,  of  the  life  eternal — and 
therefore  brought  it  before  them  under  the 
aspect  of  a  kingdom  in  which  the  supreme 
blessedness  was  to  gaze  upon  the  face  of  the 
King  and  to  be  made  glad  with  the  joy  of  His 


The  Epistle  to  Ephesus.  79 

countenance.  But  that  thought  of  a  kingdom 
required  in  its  turn  a  preparatory  training; 
without  some  such  teaching  as  that  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  it  was  likely  to  suggest 
such  a  restored  monarchy,  having  its  seat  at 
Jerusalem,  as  that  of  which  Jewish  zealots  had 
dream.t  and  were  yet  dreaming ;  and,  therefore, 
to  that  poor  sufferer  on  the  cross — the  wild  out- 
law, whose  one  element  of  religious  life  had, 
we  may  believe,  been  the  hope,  in  childish  years 
long  past,  of  a  garden  of  delight  in  which  he 
should  wander  at  his  will — He  spake  the  word 
which  gave  comfort  and  hope,  '*  This  day  thou 
shalt  be  with  me  in  paradise." 

And  now  the  beloved  Disciple  hears  once  more 
the  same  word  from  the  lips  of  the  same  Lord, 
in  the  highest  moment  of  spiritual  conscious- 
ness, as  part  of  the  apocalypse  of  eternal  truths. 
So  it  is  that  extremes  meet — that  the  language 
of  symbols  meet  the  necessities  of  children  and 
child-like  souls,  ceases  often  to  attract  or  to 
edify  those  who  are  in  an  intermediate  state 
of  growth,  and  then,  when  the  understanding  is 
ripened  and  mere  abstract  ideas  have  done 
their  work  of  formulating  and  defining,  is  found 
to  be,  after  all,  their  best,  if  not  their  only 
adequate  exponent.  The  Christian  of  highest 
culture  and   most  enlarged  experience  falls  back 


8o  The  Epistle  to  Ephesus. 

upon  the  imagery  of  the  Golden  City  and  the 
Delectable  Mountains,  and  the  Paradise  of  God 
and  the  Tree  of  Life. 

The  revival  of  this  last  symbol  in  the  pages 
of  the  Apocalj^pse  is  in  many  ways  suggestive. 
Prominent  as  it  had  been  in  the  primaeval  his- 
tory, it  had  remained  unnoticed  in  the  teaching 
where  we  should  most  have  looked  for  its 
presence, — in  that  of  the  Psalmists  and  the 
Prophets  of  the  Old  Testament,  Only  in  the 
Proverbs  of  Solomon  had  it  been  used  in  a 
sense  half-allegorical,  half-mystical.  Wisdom 
was  a  "tree  of  life  "  to  them  that  laid  hold  on 
her  (Prov.  iii.  i8) ;  and  the  same  glorious 
predicate  was  affirmed  of  the  fulfilment  of 
the  heart's  desire  (Prov.  xiii.  12);  of  the  fruit  of 
the  righteous  (Prov.  xi.  30) ;  of  the  wholesome 
and  health-giving  tongue  (Prov.  xv.  4).  In  con- 
nection with  the  revival  of  the  symbol  in  the 
Apocalypse  it  may  be  noted  (i)  that  it  was 
the  natural  sequel  of  the  fresh  prominence  that 
had  recently  been  given,  as  we  have  seen,  to 
the  thought  of  Paradise ;  and  (2)  that  the 
writings  of  Philo  had  specifically  called  atten- 
tion to  the  Tree  of  Life  as  being  the  mystical 
type  of  the  highest  form  of  wisdom  and  of 
holiness— the  fear  of  God  {Oeocre^ela),  by  which 
the  soul  attains  to  immortality.     We   trace  in 


The  Epistle  to  EphesMs.  8i 

other  things  at  least  the  indirect  influence  of 
Philo's  teaching  on  the  thoughts  and  language 
of  St.  John ;  and  as  we  must  assume  that  all 
imagery  is  adapted,  even  in  the  words  of  the 
Divine  Speaker,  to  the  minds  of  those  who 
hear,  there  seems  no  reason  why  we  should 
not  admit  the  working  of  that  influence  here. 

It  may  be  asked,  however.  What  is  the  mean- 
ing of  the  symbol  as  thus  used,— how  are  we 
to  translate  it  into  the  language  of  more 
abstract  truth  ?  And  here,  if  I  mistake  not, 
the  more  developed  form  of  the  symbol  at  the 
close  of  the  Apocalypse  gives  us  the  true 
answer:  "The  tree  of  life  bare  twelve  manner 
of  fruits,  and  yielded  her  fruit  every  month,  and 
the  leaves  of  the  tree  were  for  the  healing 
of  the  nations"  (Rev.  xxii.  2).  The  leaves  and 
the  fruit  obviously  represent,  the  one  the  full 
and  direct,  the  other  the  partial  and  indirect, 
workings  of  that  eternal  life  which  St.  John 
thought  of  as  manifested  in  the  Incarnate 
Word,  The  "healing  of  the  nations,"  the 
elevation  of  their  standard  of  purity  and  holi- 
ness, of  duty  and  of  love, — this  has  been  the 
work  of  that  partial  knowledge  which  the 
Church  of  Christ  has  been  instrumental  in 
diffusing.  Its  influence  has  counteracted  the 
deadly  working  of  the  fruit  of  the  other  tree  of 
7 


82  The  Epistle  to  Ephesiis. 

"the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,"  which  we  trace 
as  due  to  a  wisdom  that  is  earthly,  sensual, 
devilish.  But  to  '^  eat  of  the,  fruit  of  the  tree'' 
implies  a  more  complete  fruition,  a  higher  com- 
munion and  fellowship  with  the  source  of  life. 
And  here,  therefore,  I  cannot  but  think  that 
the  promise  of  the  Judge  points  to  the  truth 
that  He  is  Himself,  now  as  ever,  the  "exceed- 
ing great  reward "  (Gen.  xv.  i)  of  those  that 
serve  Him  faithfully,  that  the  symbol  veils 
the  truth  that  "  this  is  life  eternal,  to  know 
the  only  true  God  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  He 
has  sent  "  (John  xvii.  3). 

And  that  reward  is  promised  "^0  him  that 
overcomethy  If  anything  were  wanted  to  com- 
plete the  evidence  of  a  resemblance  in  thought 
and  phrase  in  all  the  writings  ascribed  to  the 
authorship  of  St.  John,  it  would  be  found  in  the 
prominence  of  this  word  in  all  of  them.  Here 
it  is  the  burden  of  every  message.  '*  I  have 
overcome  the  world  " — this  was  the  assurance 
given  to  the  disciples  by  their  Master  imme- 
diately before  that  prayer  which,  as  the  great 
High  Priest  of  mankind.  He  offered  up  for 
them  and  all  His  people  (John  xvi.  33).  The 
self-same  word  is  echoed  in  the  Epistles.  To 
overcome  the  wicked  one  is  the  glory  of  the 
young  men  who    are   faithful   to   their  calling 


The  Epistle  to  Ephesus.  83 

(i  John  ii.  13,  14), — "that  which  is  born  of 
God  overcometh  the  world "  (i  John  v.  4). 
"  This  is  the  victory  that  overcometh  the  world, 
even  our  faith,"  the  faith  of  him  that  believeth 
that  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God  (i  John  v.  4,  5). 
In  the  other  Gospels  it  occurs  but  once,  and 
then  with  but  little  emphasis  (Luke  xi.  22). 
In  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  it  meets  us  once 
only,  and  then  in  the  simply  ethical  precept, 
"  Be  not  overcome  of  evil,  but  overcome  evil 
with  good  "  (Rom.  xii.  21).  It  was  reserved 
for  St.  John  ^  at  once  to  record,  to  echo,  and 
to  develop  throughout  his  writings  the  words 
which  he  had  heard  from  his  Master's  lips ; 
and  through  him  they  have  become  part  of  the 
inheritance  of  Christendom,  and  have  carried, 
and  will  carry  to  the  end  of  time,  strength  and 
comfort  to  every  faithful  soldier  in  that  great 
warfare  against  evil  in  which  Christ  is  the 
Captain  of  our  salvation. 

^  The  verb  occurs,   it   may  be   noted,   twenty   times   in   the 
writings  of  St.  John. 


7* 


III. 

THE  EPISTLE  TO  SMYRNA 


THE  REVELATION. 

CHAPTER   II. 

8  And  unto  the  angel  of  the  church  in  Smyrna  write ;  These 
thins^s  saith  the  first  and  the  last,  which  was  dead,  and  is  alive  ; 

9  I  know  thy  works,  and  tribulation,  and  poverty,  (but  thou  art 
rich)  and  I  know  the  blasphemy  of  them  which  say  they  are  Jews, 
and  are  not,  but  are  the  synagogue  of  Satan. 

10  Fear  none  of  those  things  which  thou  shalt  suffer  :  behold,  the 
devil  shall  cast  some  of  you  into  prison  that  ye  may  be  tried  ;  and 
ye  shall  have  tribulation  ten  days  :  be  thou  faithful  unto  death,  and 
I  will  give  thee  a  crown  of  life. 

11  He  that  hath  an  ear,  let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit  saith  unto 
the  churches  ;  He  that  overcometh  shall  not  be  hurt  of  the  second 
death. 


III. 

THE  messages  that  follow  that  to  the 
Church  of  Ephesus  stand  in  one  respect 
in  very  striking  contrast  to  it.  There  we  are 
able,  through  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  and  the 
Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  to  follow  the  history  of 
the  Christian  community  from  its  very  birth ; 
to  trace  the  influences  that  had  acted  on  it ; 
to  see  in  what  way  the  picture  brought  before 
us  in  the  Apocalypse  was  the  result  of  those 
influences.  Here  we  know  nothing  of  the 
previous  history.  But  for  this  mention  of  the 
Churches  we  should  not  have  known  that  any 
Christian  congregations  had  been  planted  there. 
Knowing  that  they  were  so  planted  we  can  at 
best  conjecture  that  they  owed  their  origin  to 
the  evangelising  activity  of  St.  Paul,  or  his 
associates  in  the  mission-work  of  the  Church, 
during  his  residence  at  Ephesus,  and  that  they 
had  become  personally  known  to  St.  John 
when  he  succeeded  to  the  care  of  the  Asiatic 
Churches. 


88  The  Epistle  to  Smyrna. 

Nor  does  it  help  us  here,  any  more  than  in 
the  case  of  Ephesus,  to  fall  back  upon  the  pre- 
Christian  history  of  Smyrna  as  a  city.  That  it 
had  been  wealthy,  populous,  commercial,  from 
the  remote  period  that  had  preceded  the  Per- 
sian conquest ;  that  it  claimed,  with  other 
cities  (six  or  seven),  to  have  been  the  birth- 
place of  Homer;  that,  after  suffering  great 
injury  from  an  earthquake  in  the  early  part 
of  the  reign  of  Tiberius,  it  had  risen  from  its 
ruins  into  fresh  magnificence ;  that  it  courted 
and  gained  the  favour  of  that  Emperor  and  his 
successors, — all  this  is,  for  our  present  purpose, 
of  little  moment.  It  is,  perhaps,  something 
more  to  the  point  to  remember  that  it  was  as 
famous  for  the  worship  of  Dionysos  as  Ephesus 
was  for  that  of  Artemis,  and  that  the  mysteries 
and  games  which  were  held  yearly  in  his 
honour  were  a  prominent  feature  in  its  life.  It 
followed,  almost  as  a  matter  of  course,  from 
its  wealth  and  trade,  that  it  would  attract  a 
considerable  population  of  Jews,  and  that  these 
would  occupy  there  much  the  same  position  as 
at  Ephesus,'  worshipping  in  their  synagogues, 
zealous  for  their  faith,  some  of  them  welcoming 

'  The  prominence  of  the  Jews  in  the  history  of  the  martyrdom 
of  Polycarp  at  a  later  date  shews  how  numerous  they  then  were. 
{Mart.  Polyc.  c.  12,  13,  17.) 


The  Epistle  to  Smyrna.  89 

the  new  doctrine  of  the  preachers  of  the  Cross 
as  the  completion  of  that  faith,  some  of  them 
hating  and  reviHng  it  even  more  than  they 
hated  the  Heathenism  by  which  they  were 
surrounded.  In  such  a  city  it  was  natural  that 
the  believers  in  the  name  of  Christ  should 
suffer  persecution.  It  is  clear  that  they  had 
not  escaped  the  storm  which  swept  over  the 
Asiatic  Churches  at  the  time  of  St.  Paul's  last 
visit,  and  which  had  apparently  burst  out  with 
fresh  violence  at  the  time  when  the  beloved 
Disciple  was  suffering  for  the  faith  in  his  exile 
in  Patmos.  Possibly  its  comparative  remote- 
ness from  the  great  centre  of  apostolic  activity 
at  Ephesus  exposed  it  more  to  the  excitement 
of  fear  and  agitation  which  persecution  inevit- 
ably brings  with  it. 

To  the  Angel  of  that  Church  accordingly  the 
Lord,  who  speaks  the  word  in  season  to  them 
that  are  weary  (Isa.  1.  4),  reveals  Himself  by 
a  name  that  speaks  of  permanence  and  calm, 
of  victory  over  all  disturbing  forces,  victory  all 
the  more  complete  and  wonderful  because  it 
came  after  apparent  failure  — "  These  things 
saith  the  First  and  the  Last,  which  was  dead 
and  is  alive.''  Those  who  were  struggling, 
suffering,  dying  for  the  faith,  were  the  servants 
of    no  party-leader,  no   founder  of  a  sect,   no 


90  The  Epistle  to  Smyrna. 

prophet  with  a  temporary  mission,  but  of  One 
to  whom  all  the  aeons  of  the  world's  history, 
all  wars  and  revolutions  and  the  rise  and  fall 
of  kingdoms  were  but  as  "  moments  in  the 
eternal  silence."  They  might  be  tempted  to 
think  their  cause  desperate ;  they  might  seem 
to  be  fighting  against  overwhelming  odds  ; 
death  in  all  the  myriad  forms  which  the 
subtle  cruelty  of  persecution  could  devise  might 
appear  imminent,  but  He  who  ^^  was  dead  and 
is  alive'''  could  give  them  there  also  a  victory 
like  his  own.^ 

Nor  were  the  words  that  followed  less  dis- 
tinctive in  their  consoling  power :  He  knew 
their  "  works,''  their  "  tribulation,"  and  their 
^^ poverty."  The  last  word  is  specially  sugges- 
tive as  pointing  to  that  which  weighed  most 
oppressively  on  the  minds  of  the  suffering  com- 
munity of  Smyrna.  Persecution  has  its  heroic 
and  exciting  side,  and  under  its  stimulus  men 
do  and  dare  much ;  but  when,  in  addition  to 
this,    there    is   the    daily   pressure    of    ignoble 

1 1  can  hardly  bring  myself  to  accept  Dean  Blakesley's  sugges- 
tion {Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  art.  **  Smyrna  "),  that  the  words 
imply  a  reference  to  the  mythical  legend  of  the  death  and 
reviviscence  of  Dionysos,  which,  at  Smyrna  as  elswhere,  was 
prominent  in  the  mysteries  that  bore  his  name.  That  legend 
must  surely  ha\'e  been  altogether  foreign  to  the  thoughts  of  the 
Evangelist  and  the  believers  to  whom  he  wrote. 


The  Epistle  to  Smymia.  91 

cares,  the  living  as  from  hand  to  mouth,  the 
insufficient  food  and  the  scanty  squalid  clothing 
of  the  beggar,  the  trial  becomes  more  wearing, 
and  calls  for  greater  fortitude  and  faith.  We 
do  not  sufficiently  estimate,  I  believe,  this 
element  in  the  sufferings  of  the  first  believers. 
Taken  for  the  most  part  from  the  humbler 
class  of  artisans,  often  thrown  out  of  employ- 
ment by  the  very  fact  of  their  conversion,  with 
new  claims  upon  them  from  the  afflicted  mem- 
bers of  the  great  family  of  Christ  close  at 
hand  or  afar  off,  and  a  new  energy  of  sacrifice 
prompting  them  to  admit  those  claims,  sub- 
jected not  unfrequently  to  the  "  spoiling  of 
their  goods"  (Heb.  x.  34),  we  cannot  wonder 
that  they  should  have  had  little  earthly  store, 
and  that  their  reserve  of  capital  should  have 
been  rapidly  exhausted.  Traces  of  this  meet 
us,  though  they  are  not  put  forward  ostenta- 
tiously, in  many  scattered  passages  of  the  New 
Testament  writings.  Collections  for  the  poor 
saints  at  Jerusalem  were  made  in  all  the 
churches  of  the  Gentiles.  Those  who  gave 
most  liberally  to  that  work  did  so  out  of  the 
*'  deep  poverty  "  in  which  they  were  themselves 
plunged,  "to  the  utmost  of  their  power,  yea, 
and  beyond  their  power"  (2  Cor.  viii.  2,  3). 
Even   the   stress   laid   in  some   of   St.    Paul's 


92  The  Epistle  to  Smyrna. 

Epistles  on  the  duties  of  the  rich  points  to 
their  position  as  altogether  exceptional.  And 
poverty  brought  with  it,  as  the  Epistle  of  St. 
James  shews  us,  some  trials  to  which  those 
who  had  been  devout  Israelites  before  their 
conversion,  and  who  had  not  ceased  to  claim 
their  position  as  such,  would  be  peculiarly 
sensitive.  In  the  synagogue  which  they  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  attending,  and  which  there 
was  no  reason  for  their  at  once  forsaking,  per- 
haps even  in  the  assemblies  of  Jewish  disciples 
which  still  retained  the  old  name  and  many  of 
the  old  usages,  they  would  find  themselves 
scorned  and  scoffed  at,  thrust  into  the  back- 
ground, below  the  footstool  of  the  opulent 
traders  in  whom  a  city  like  Smyrna  was 
certain  to  abound  (James  ii.  2,  3).  The  hatred 
which  the  unbelieving  Jews  felt  for  the  name 
of  Christ  would  connect  itself  with  their  purse- 
proud  scorn  of  the  poor  and  needy,  and  '*  those 
beggars  of  Christians  "  would  become  a  by- 
word of  reproach.^ 

It  was  a  message  of  comfort  to  those  who 
were  smarting  under  that  taunt  to  hear,  as 
from   their    Lord's   lips,    "/  know    thy  poverty y 

^  I  may  recall  to  the  reader's  memory  that  this  is  the  most  ac- 
cepted explanatioai  of  the  name  Ebionites  ("the  poor"),  applied 
to  a  large  section  of  Jewish  Christians  in  the  first  century. 


The  Epistle  to  Smyrna,  93 

hid  thou  art  richy  He  measured  poverty  and 
riches  by  another  standard  than  the  world's, 
and  so  the  words  recorded  by  St.  John  are,  as 
it  were,  the  echo  of  those  which  the  brother 
of  the  Lord  had  addressed  to  men  who  were 
in  a  like  condition  :  "  Hath  not  God  chosen 
the  poor  of  this  world  rich  in  faith,  and  heirs 
of  the  kingdom  which  he  hath  promised  to 
them  that  love  him  ?  "  (James  ii.  5.)  And  He, 
looking  upon  their  works  and  their  tribulation, 
knew  that  they  had  their  treasure  in  heaven, 
that  they  were  rich  with  His  own  unsearch- 
able riches,  that  they  had  laid  up  their  wealth 
where  neither  rust  nor  moth  corrupt  and  where 
thieves  do  not  break  through  and  steal.  Their 
state  was  the  very  antithesis  of  that  which  we 
shall  afterwards  find  described  as  that  of  the 
Church  of  Laodicea,  and  in  that  deep  poverty 
of  theirs  they  were  wealthy,  beyond  the  dreams 
of  avarice,  in  the  "  gold  tried  in  the  fire." 

The  stress  thus  laid  on  one  special  incident 
of  the  tribulation  of  the  Church  of  Smyrna 
prepares  us  to  understand  the  words  that  follow. 
I  take  the  blasphemy  of  which  they  speak  as 
coming  from  ^^  those  who  say  they  are  Jews 
and  are  not,''  as  meaning,  primarily,  not  direct 
blasphemy  against  God,  but  the  words  of  reviling 
which  were    hurled    in   reckless   scorn    at   the 


94  The  Epistle  to  Smyrna, 

believers  in  the  name  of  Christ.  It  was  in  the 
synagogue  that  they  heard  the  words  which 
reproached  them  as  Nazarenes,  Galileans, 
Christians,  disciples  of  the  Crucified  ;  and,  as 
in  the  case  of  those  of  whom  St.  James  writes, 
those  who  despised  the  poor,  and  whose  contempt 
was  aggravated  by  the  fact  that  these  poor  were 
Christians,  in  reviling  them  "  blasphemed  also 
that  worthy  name "  by  which  they  had  been 
called  (James  ii.  7).  Upon  all  such,  whether 
they  were  Jews  continuing  still  in  their  unbelief, 
or,  as  is  possible,  professing  some  kind  of  faith 
in  Christ,  yet  retaining  all  the  vices  of  their 
original  Pharisaism,  the  Lord  of  the  Churches 
pronounces  the  sentence  that  they  are  no  true 
Jews,  that  they  do  not  belong  to  the  Israel  of 
God,  that  the  synagogue  of  which  they  are  the 
members  is  nothing  else  than  the  synagogue 
of  Satan.  His  spirit  was  working  in  them,  the 
spirit  of  pride,  and  hatred,  and  scorn,  and  un- 
belief, and  it  was  well  that  they,  who  knew  not 
what  manner  of  spirit  they  were  of,  should  have 
their  eyes  opened  to  the  perils  of  their  true  state. 
And  then  there  came  words  which  at  once 
told  them  that  they  had  to  face  evils  that  were 
greater  than  any  they  had  as  yet  experienced, 
and  enabled  them  to  bear  them.  The  storm 
was  not    yet  over.      They  had  but  heard  its 


The  Epistle  to-  Smyrna.  95 

mutterings  and  seen  its  distant  flashes  as  com- 
pared with  the  violence  with  which  it  was  about 
to  break  on  them.  "  T/z^  devil'' — for  the  an- 
tagonismx  to  the  Truth  is  traced  up  here,  as 
elsewhere,  beyond  all  merely  human  instruments, 
to  the  great  enemy  of  God  and  man,  the  great 
accuser  and  slanderer,  the  head  of  all  the  human 
diaholi  who  made  themselves  instruments  in 
his  work  —  would  ^' cast  some  of  them  into 
prison,''  and  from  that  prison  some  of  them 
should  pass  out  to  encounter  death  in  all  the 
manifold  forms  which  the  cruelty  of  their  per- 
secutors could  devise.  They  were  to  be  tried 
with  this  fiery  trial  that  the  gold  of  their  true 
treasure  might  be  at  once  tested  and  purified. 
That  which  was  designed  by  their  great  foe  as 
a  temptation  leading  them  to  apostasy  should 
work,  like  all  the  other  "manifold  temptations" 
to  which  they  were  exposed,  so  as  to  be  fruitful 
in  all  joy. 

The  specific  mention  of  the  'Uen  days"  during 
which  the  tribulation  was  to  last  has  naturally 
suggested  many  questions.  Are  the  days  to  be 
taken  literally,  and  has  the  prediction  therefore 
the  character  of  a  promise,  encouraging  the 
sufferers  to  stedfastness  on  the  ground  of  the 
short  duration  of  the  trial  ?  Are  we  to  adopt  what 
has  almost   come  to  be  assumed  as  an  axiom 


96  The  Epistle  to  Smyrna. 

to  the  interpretation  of  other  parts  of  the 
Apocatypse,  that  a  day  stands  for  a  year,  and 
that  the  words  point  therefore  to  the  persecution 
as  at  once  severe  and  protracted,  and  calling 
for  the  faith  which  alone  endureth  to  the  end  ? 
Without  adopting,  or  even  for  the  present  dis- 
cussing, the  "year-day"  theory,  I  am  disposed 
to  accept  the  latter  view  in  its  general  bearing. 
The  number  Ten,  the  last  of  the  scale  of  num- 
bers, the  total  of  the  first  four  units,  each  of  which 
had  a  mystic  meaning  of  its  own,  is  naturally, 
in  the  symbolism  of  numbers,  the  representative 
of  completeness,  and  here,  therefore,  of  perse- 
cution carried  to  its  full  extent,  and  lacking 
nothing  that  could  make  it  thorough  and  perfect, 
as  a  test/  It  comes  as  the  climax  of  the  whole 
picture  of  the  sufferings  to  which  the  Church 
of  Smyrna  was  to  be  exposed.  It  implies  the 
"  death  "  which  is  prominently  brought  forward 
in  the  words  of  promise  that  follow.  In  those 
words  we  may  perhaps  find  something  of  a  local 
colouring,  imagery  drawn  from  the  associations 
that  were  necessarily  familiar  to  the  Church  of 

^  The  usage  of  the  Old  Testament  is  not  consistent.  In  Gen. 
xxxi.  41,  Num.  xiv.  24,  Job.  xix.  3,  the  definite  number  is  used 
to  convey  the  idea  of  indefinitely  frequent  repetition.  In  Gen. 
xxiv.  58,  Num.  xi.  19,  it  is  used,  apparently,  in  its  literal  sense. 
The  interpretation  now  given  is  based  upon  Bahr,  Symbolik^ 


The  Epistle  to  Sniyi^na.  97 

Smyrna  and  its  Angel.  In  the  great  games  of 
that  city,  as  in  the  Isthmian  games  and  those 
of  Olympia,  the  victor  in  the  strife  received 
the  "crown,"  or  "garland"  (aricjiavo^)  that  was 
the  badge  of  conquest.'  For  that  crown  men 
were  ready  to  endure  and  dare.  It  was  the 
great  joy  and  glory  of  their  lives.  And  such 
a  crown  of  victory  the  Lord  of  the  Churches 
promises  to  him  who  is  faithful  unto  death. 
It  is  to  be  "  a  crown  of  life,''  the  genitive  (as 
in  the  case  of  the  "  crown  of  righteousness  " 
of  2  Tim.  iv.  8)  pointing  to  that  of  which  the 
crown  is,  as  it  were,  made  up.  Life,  eternal 
life,  is  that  which  makes  the  reward  of  all 
faithful  combatants,  and  that  eternal  life  con- 

^  Dean  Blakesley  states,  in  the  article  already  referred  to,  but 
without  giving  his  authority,  that  the  "crown  "  was  given  to  the 
priest  who  presided  at  the  Dionysian  mysteries,  and  that  Smyr- 
naean  inscriptions  record  the  names  of  many  persons,  men  and 
women,  distinguished  as  (TT^<pav)](p6poL.  I  cannot  see  any  force 
in  the  objection  urged  by  Archbishop  Trench  to  this  reference, 
that  comparisons  drawn  from  the  games  of  Greece  were  foreign 
to  the  thoughts  both  of  the  writer  and  the  readers  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse, and  that  the  crowns  referred  to  are  therefore  the  signs,  not 
of  victory  in  conflict,  but,  like  the  ^lao'/yuara  (diadems)  of  Rev. 
xii.  3;  xiii.  I ;  xix.  12,  of  regal  majesty.  The  Asiatic  Churches  must 
have  been  familiar  by  this  time  with  the  imagery  which  had  been 
so  freely  used  both  by  St.  Paul  (i  Cor.  ix.  24-27  ;  2  Tim.  iv.  7  ; 
Phil.  iii.  13)  and  the  great  unknown  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  (Heb.  xii.  i)  ;  and  the  fact  that  St.  John  uses  the  other 
word  where  the  other  meaning  is  required  is,  at  least,  presumptive 
evidence  that  he  uses  this  in  its  usual  and  more  definite  meaning. 
8 


gS  The  Epistle  to  Smyrna, 

sists  in  knowing  God  and  Jesus  Christ  whom 
He  has  sent.  Now,  as  ever,  He  is  Himself 
the  exceeding  great  reward  of  those  who  serve 
Him  truly. 

The  promise  with  which  the  message  ends, 
though  different  and  more  general,  as  well  as 
more  mystical  in  its  form,  expresses  substantially 
the  same  truth:  ^^ He  that  overcometh  shall  not 
he  hurt  of  the  second  death.''  The  word,  so 
strange  and  awful,  was,  so  far  as  we  know, 
comparatively  new.  Nothing  like  it  meets  us 
in  the  Gospels,  or  in  the  Epistles  of  St.  Peter 
and  St.  Paul.  And,  although  we  must  believe 
that  it  had  been  used  before  in  the  teaching  of 
St.  John,  so  that  it  would  not  fall  on  ears  to 
which  it  would  convey  no  intelligible  meaning, 
it  is  yet  ckar  that  it  had  not  up  to  this  time 
become  part  of  the  current  phraseology  of  the 
Church.^  Yet  the  meaning  of  the  phrase  was 
not  far  to  seek.  One  who  had  learnt  that  the 
life  of  the  body  was  not  the  true  life,  must 
have  learnt,  as  the  complement   of  that  truth, 

'  The  date  of  the  several  portions  of  the  Jerusalem  Targumto 
which  Archbishop  Trench  refers  as  shewing  that  the  word  was 
not  strange  to  Jewish  ears,  cannot,  I  believe,  be  fixed  with  pre- 
cision ;  but  it  is  at  least  possible  that  the  Jews  of  Palestine  had 
become  familiar  with  the  phrase  through  the  paraphrase  given  in 
it  of  Deut.  xxxiii.  6,  and  Psa.  xlix.  ii,  in  which  the  "second 
death  "  is  that  which  comes  upon  the  wicked  in  the  world  to 
come,  and  is  used  as  synonymous  with  Gehenna. 


The  Epistle  to  Smyrna.  99 

that  there  was  a  death  more  terrible  than  that 
to  which  the  body  is  subject — the  loss  of  the 
eternal  life.  The  teaching  of  his  Lord  on  earth 
had  indeed  implied  that  "  second  deaths  Men 
were  not  to  fear  those  who  were  only  able  to 
kill  the  body,  but  him  who  was  able  to  destroy 
both  soul  and  body  in  hell  (Matt.  x.  28).  Who- 
soever believed  in  Him  should  not  see  death, 
even  though  his  body  was  committed  to  the 
grave  ;  "  though  he  were  dead,  yet  should  he 
live  "  (John  xi.  25).  More  striking  still,  as 
bringing  more  fully  into  view  the  latent  terrors 
of  the  phrase,  is  its  recurrence  in  a  later  chapter 
of  the  Revelation.  There  it  is  said  that  the 
"second  death"  hath  no  power  over  the  blessed 
and  holy  ones  who  have  part  in  the  first  resur- 
rection (xx.  6) ;  and,  again,  that  it  is  identical 
with  "the  lake  of  fire,"  into  which  both  Death 
and  Hades  are  to  be  cast,  together  with  every 
one  who  was  not  found  written  in  the  book 
of  life  (xx.  14,  15). 

It  does  not  fall  within  my  aim  in  this 
volume  to  enter  upon  the  wide  eschatolo- 
gical  questions  which  these  passages  open 
as  regards  the  time  and  sequence  of  the 
events  thus  mysteriously  shadowed  forth.  We 
are  compelled,  however,  to  ask  what  light 
they  throw  upon  the  promise  to  the  Angel 
8* 


lOO  The  Epistle  to  Smy7^na, 

of  the  Church  of  Smyrna.  Is  the  "  second 
death''  to  be  interpreted  by  the  "  lake  of  fire  " 
as  implying  a  state  of  enduring  pain  ?  Are  we 
to  rob  the  *'  lake  of  fire"  of  its  terrors  by  seeing 
in  it  only  the  "  second  death,''  of  the  loss  of  con- 
scious life  or  utter  annihilation  ?  Here  also  we 
stand  on  the  threshold  of  great  problems  which 
we  cannot  solve.  But,  as  a  question  of  simple 
interpretation,  I  am  bound  to  express  my  con- 
viction that  the  evidence  leads  to  the  former, 
and  not  the  latter,  conclusion.  The  imagery 
of  the  fieiy  lake,  like  that  of  the  worm  and  the 
flame  of  the  Valley  of  Hinnom,  may  be  but 
imagery;  but  it  points  at  least  to  some  dread 
reality  which  is  veiled  beneath  those  awful 
symbols.  What  that  reality  is  we  may  infer 
from  St.  John's  conceptions  of  the  higher  life. 
If  the  first  death  is  the  loss  of  the  first  or 
earthly  life,  then  the  second  death  must  be  the 
loss  of  that  knowledge  of  God  which  makes  the 
blessedness  of  eternal  life — and  that  loss  is  at 
lea-st  compatible  with  the  thought  of  continuous 
existence.  What  possibilities  in  the  far-off 
future  were  shadowed  forth  by  the  m\sterious 
words  that  *'  Death  and  Hades  were  cast  into 
the  lake  of  fire,"  as  though  they  were  to  be 
robbed  of  their  power  to  destroy,  and  were 
punished  as  the  great  enemies  of  God  and  man, 


The  Epistle  to  Smyrna.  loi 

how  far  those  who  were  cast  in  with  them 
might  even. there  be  not  shut  out  from  hope, 
it  was  not  given  to  the  Seer  of  the  Apocalypse 
to  know,  nor  did  he  care  to  ask.  It  was  enough 
for  the  faithful  sufferers  under  persecution,  who 
overcame  in  that  conflict  with  the  phmnia 
mortis  imago,  to  which  they  were  exposed,  to 
know  that  this  was  all  that  their  enemies  could 
inflict  on  them,  and  that  the  "  second  death'' 
should  have  no  power  to  hurt  them. 

The  date  to  which  I  have  assigned  the 
Apocalypse,  and  which  gave  a  special  interest 
to  the  message  to  the  Church  of  Ephesus,  a& 
being  probably  addressed  to  the  true  son  and 
fellow- worker  of  St.  Paul,  deprives  me  of  what 
would  have  given  an  almost  equal  interest  to 
that  now  under  consideration.  I  cannot  assume 
with  Archbishop  Trench  and  others,  whatever 
latitude  I  may  give  to  the  duration  of  his  life  or 
the  date  of  his  conversion,  that  Polycarp,  who 
suffered  martyrdom  in  a.d.  i68,  could  have  been 
the  Angel  of  the  Church  of  Smyrna  at  the  time 
when  the  Apocalypse  was  written.  And  yet  the 
coincidences  which  these  writers  have  pointed 
out  are  hardly  less  interesting  on  the  assump- 
tion that  though  the  message  was  not  addressed 
to  him,  his  life,  as  a  Christian  and  a  pastor, 
came,  more  or  less,  under  its  influence.     In  his 


I02  The  Epistle  to  Smyrna, 

long  conflict  for  the  faith — his  stedfast  endur- 
ance— his  estimate  of  the  fire  with  which  men 
could  destroy  the  body,  and  the  fire  that  never 
can  be  quenched/  we  find  a  character  on  which 
the  promise  to  him  that  overcometh  had  been 
stamped  indelibly.  In  the  narrative  of  his 
sufferings,  as  in  the  Apocalyptic  message,  the 
devil  is  represented  as  the  great  instigator 
of  the  persecution  of  which  he  was  the  victim.^ 
There  also  Jews  were  the  most  active  instru- 
ments, as  was  their  manner  always,  in  the 
fiendish  work,  even  to  the  point  of  heaping  up 
the  faggots  which  were  to  form  his  funeral 
pyre.3 

It  is  perhaps  worth  noticing,  as  shewing  the 
continuance  in  the  Church  of  Smyrna  of  the 
Same  phraseology  as  that  in  the  passage  before 
tis,  that,  in  the  Epistle  which  purports  to  be 
addressed  to  Polycarp  by  Ignatius  of  Antioch, 
the  term  "synagogue"  is  applied  to  Christian 
assemblies  (C.  4),  and  that  the  narrative  of  the 
martyrdom  ends  with  describing  him  as  having 
obtained  the  crown  {(uki^avo^)  of  incorruption/ 

'  Mart.  Polyc.  c.  2.  3  ibid.  c.  I2,  13. 

=  Ibid.  c.  3.  4  Ibid.  c.  17. 


IV. 
THE  EPISTLE  TO  PERGAMOS. 


THE  REVELATION. 

CHAPTER    II. 

12  And  to  the  angel  of  the  church  in  Pergamos  write  ;  These 
things  saith'^he  which  hath  the  sharp  sword  with  two  edges  ; 

13  I  know  thy  works,  and  where  thou  dwellest,  even  where  Satan's 
seat  is ;  and  thou  holdest  fast  my  name,  and  hast  not  denied  my 
faith,  even  in  those  days  wherein  Antipas  was  my  faithful  martyr, 
who  was  slain  among  you,  where  Satan  dwelleth. 

14  But  I  have  a  few  things  against  thee,  because  thou  hast  there 
them  that  hold  the  doctrine  of  Balaam,  who  taught  Balac  to  cast  a 
stumbling-block  before  the  children  of  Israel,  to  eat  things  sacrificed 
unto  idols,  and  to  commit  fornication. 

15  So  hast  thou  also  them  that  hold  the  doctrine  of  the  Nico- 
laitanes,  which  thing  I  hate. 

16  Repent  ;  or  else  I  will  come  unto  thee  quickly,  and  will  fight 
against  them  with  the  sword  of  my  mouth. 

17  He  that  hath  an  ear,  let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit  saith  unto  the 
churches  ;  To  him  that  overcometh  will  I  give  to  eat  of  the  hidden 
manna,  and  will  give  him  a  white  stone,  and  in  the  stone  a  new 
name  written,  which  no  man  knoweth  saving  he  that  receiveth  it. 


IV. 

IN  this  instance  there  seems  reason  to  believe 
that  there  is  a  somewhat  closer  connection 
between  the  outward  history  of  the  city  and  the 
language  in  which  the  Church  in  that  city  is 
described  in  the  Apocalypse  than  we  have  found 
in  dealing  with  the  messages  to  Ephesus  and 
Smyrna.  Something  there  was  which  gave  it 
a  bad  eminence  over  them  and  over  the  other 
cities  that  are  here  grouped  with  it.  More 
emphatically  than  any  other  it  was  the  metro- 
polis and  fortress  of  the  powers  of  evil,  the  place 
where  "  Satan's  throne  was,''  and  where  he 
himself  was  thought  of,  as  ruling  from  that 
throne,  as  the  strong  man  armed,  resenting 
and  resisting  the  attack  which  was  now  made 
upon  him  by  one  mightier  than  himself.  How 
it  came  to  be  so,  that  outward  history  may, 
in  part  at  least,  explain. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  go  back  to  the  earlier 
time  when  the  rock  citadel  of  Mysia,  about 
three  miles  from  the  banks  of  the  Caicus,  first 


io6  The  Epistle  to  Pergamos, 

became  celebrated  for  its  worship  of  the  mys- 
terious Cabiri,  and  then,  like  other  sacred  places, 
became  a  treasury  where  kings  and  chieftains 
deposited  their  wealth.  It  will  be  enough  to 
remember  that  after  the  break-up  of  the  Mace- 
donian monarchy  it  became  the  capital  of  a 
wealthy  kingdom,  and  that  Eumenes  11.  sought 
to  rival  the  glory  of  Alexandria  by  the  foundation 
of  a  library,  in  which  were  stored  the  chief  works 
of  the  literature  and  philosophy  of  Greece;^  that 
it  became  famous  for  the  worship  of  the  great 
deities,  Zeus,  Athene,  Dionysos,  Apollo,  Aphro- 
dite, and,  with  even  a  more  special  devotion, 
of  ^sculapius ;  that  round  that  last  form  of 
idolatry  there  gathered  a  great  medical  school, 
which  was  afterwards  rendered  illustrious  by 
the  name  of  Galen.  In  this  religious  character 
lay  its  special  claim  to  greatness.  It  was,  as 
Dean  Blakesley  has  well  described  it,''  "  a  sort 
of  union  of  a  pagan  cathedral  city,  an  university 
town,  and  a  royal  residence;"  and  when,  on  the 
death  of  Attains  III.,  it  passed,  by  his  bequest, 
to  the  Roman  Republic,  and  afterwards  to  the 
Empire,    it    retained    its    old   fame,    and    was 

'  It  may  be  interesting  to  some  readers  to  be  reminded  that 
from  thislibraiy  we  get  the  name  parchment  (charta  Pergamena), 
as  applied  to  the  special  kind  of  vellum  that  was  manufactured 
for  the  transcription  of  its  choicest  works. 

-  Dictionary  of  the  Bible ,  art.  **  Pergamos." 


The  Epistle  to  Perganios.  107 

described  by  Pliny  as  without  a  rival  in  the 
whole  province  of  Asia. 

Such  a  city  might  well  seem  to  the  x\postle 
to  be  the  headquarters  of  that  great  evil  Power 
against  which  he  and  his  fellow-believers  had 
gone  forth  in  the  name  of  Christ  to  wage  an 
internecine  warfare.  And  if  we  picture  to  our- 
selves some  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  worship 
which  was  there  prominent — how  ^Esculapius 
was  honoured  with  the  name  of  "  Preserver," 
or  "  Saviour"  {^corrjp);  how  in  his  temple  the 
-^sculapian  symbol  of  the  wreathed  serpent 
must  have  been  the  most  conspicuous  object, 
seeming  alike  to  Jew  and  Christian  to  be  nothing 
else  but  an  open  adoration  of  the  "great  serpent, 
or  dragon,  called  the  Devil  and  Satan  "  (Rev. 
xii.  g) ;  how  to  them  the  works  of  healing  that 
were  ascribed  to  the  power  of  the  guardian  deity 
of  the  city  would  seem  to  be  lying  signs  and 
wonders,  and  the  name  which  he  bore  a  blas- 
phemous assumption  of  the  power  of  the  true 
Saviour,  and  even  the  books  which  the  followers 
of  iEsculapius  studied  to  be  of  the  class  of  those 
belonging  to  the  *'  curious  arts,"  which  they  held 
in  righteous  abhorrence  and  which  the  first 
fervour  of  faith  had  led  the  zealous  converts  to 
destroy  (Acts  xix.  19) — it  will  not  seem  strange 
that  such  a  city  should  be  described,  as  we  find 


io8  The  Epistle  to  Pergamos. 

it  described  here,  as  the  very  throne  of  Satan, 
even  if  there  had  been  no  special  events  to  indi- 
cate that  there  the  powers  of  evil  were  working 
in  their  utmost  malignity.  But  the  context 
shews  that  they  had  thus  displayed  themselves. 
In  other  cities  there  had  been  the  trial  of  perse- 
cution, but  it  had  not  extended  beyond  scorn, 
contumely,  spoliation,  or,  at  the  furthest,  im- 
prisonment, and  stripes,  and  exile.  Here  it  had 
gone  further,  and  Pergamos  had  witnessed  the 
death  of  one  whom  we  may  well  believe  to  have 
been  the  protomartyr  of  the  Asiatic  Churches. 

The  special  intensity  of  the  evils  which  pre- 
vailed at  Pergamos  determined,  it  would  seem, 
the  choice  of  the  special  attribute  claimed  by 
the  Lord  of  the  Churches  as  "  iJ^  ivhich  hath 
the  sharp  sivord  with  two  edges.''  That  sharp 
sword  (the  word  points,  in  its  literal  meaning, 
to  the  long  sword  of  the  heavy-armed  soldier, 
as  distinct  from  dagger  or  short  sabre)  came, 
it  will  be  remembered,  from  the  mouth,  instead 
of  being  wielded  with  the  hand,  and  so  answered 
to  the  description  of  the  righteous  and  victorious 
King  given  by  the  prophet  (Isa.  xi.  4;  xlix.  2),  and 
was  the  symbolic  representation  of  the  imagery 
which  the  language  of  St.  Paul  must  have  made 
familiar,  and  in  which  the  "  sword  of  the  Spirit" 
was  "the  word  of  God"  (Ephes.  vi.   17).     As 


The  Epistle  to  Pergamos.  109 

such  the  two-edged  weapon  was  to  do  its  two- 
fold work.  On  the  one  hand  it  was  to  smite  that 
it  might  heal,  "  piercing  even  to  the  dividing 
asunder  of  soul  and  spirit "  (Heb.  iv.  12),  cutting 
to  the  quick,  reaching  the  conscience,  laying  bare 
the  hidden  depths  of  each  man's  life.  On  the 
other  it  was  also  quick  and  powerful  to  smite  and 
to  destroy  ;  and  with  it,  with  the  weapon  of  the 
Divine  Word,  the  champions  of  the  Truth,  and 
the  Captain  of  the  great  host  of  those  champions 
Himself,  would  win  the  victory  even  in  that 
battlefield  where  the  throne  of  Satan  was  set  up 
as  though  he  were  undisputed  lord. 

The  fact  that  the  Church  of  Pergamos  had 
witnessed  the  death  of  one  of  its  teachers 
(Antipas)  has  been  already  noticed  by  anticipa- 
tion :  of  that  ''''faithful  martyr'^  we  must  be  con- 
tent to  confess  that  we  know  nothing  more  than 
the  name.  The  passing  mention  of  him  by 
Tertullian  is  obviously  drawn  from  this  passage 
and  conveys  no  information  ;  the  longer  narra- 
tive of  Simeon  Metaphrastes  is  as  obviously 
nothing  but  a  martyrdom  written  to  order  in 
the  tenth  century.  The  suggestion  made  by 
Hengstenberg  that  the  name  is  itself  symbolical ; 
that  it  is,  as  it  were,  equivalent  to  dvTL/coo-fMo^, 
*'  one  who  holds  his  own  against  every  one  " 
(az^Tt-Tra?) ,  an   Athanasms  contra  Mundinn ;  and 


no  The  Epistle  to  Pergamos. 

the  still  wilder  conjecture  that  under  this  pseudo- 
nym we  may  recognise  the  living  form  of 
Timotheus,  though  nothing  in  what  the  New 
Testament  records  connects  him  with  the  Per- 
gamene  district,  may  be  dismissed  as  simply 
and  almost  childishly  fantastic.^  The  name, 
like  that  of  the  Tetrarch  of  Galilee,  is  simply 
a  form  of  Antipatros,  as  Lucas  is  of  Lucanus, 
or  Zenas  of  Zenodorus.  And  so  we  must  leave 
the  name  that  thus  shines  like  a  star  in  the  firma- 
ment of  heaven,  without  knowing  more  than  that 
he  who  bore  it  had,  in  open  conflict  against  the 
powers  of  evil,  borne  his  witness  that  Christ 
was  the  one  Healer,  Preserver,  Saviour,  and 
thus  had  drawn  upon  himself  the  wrath  of  those 
who  saw  their  craft  endangered,  or  were  roused, 
apart  from  motives  of  interest,  to  fanatic  indig- 
nation. It  remains  only  to  note  that  here  also 
the  blood  of  martyrs  was  the  seed  of  the  Church, 
and  was  fruitful  in  a  harvest  of  like  noble  souls, 
and  that  among  those  who  were  most  conspicu- 
ous in  the  annals  of  martyrdom  in  the  severer 
persecutions  of  the  second  century  were  four,  at 
least,  who  claimed  Pergamos  as  their  birthplace.^ 

'  It  may  be  well  to  state  that  I  can  see  nothing  in  the  faint 
apology  which  Archbishop  Trench  makes  for  Hengstenberg's 
hypothesis  to  modify  this  conviction. 

-  Euseb.  Hist.  Eccl.  iv.  15  ;  v.  i. 


The  Epistle  to  Pergamos.  1 1 1 

The  words  that  follow  note  what  there  was 
of  evil  in  the  Church  in  which  there  was  so 
much  that  was  conspicuously  good  :  *'  /  have 
a  few  things  against  thee,  because  thou  hast 
there  them  that  hold  the  doctrine  of  Balaam, 
who  taught  Balak^  to  cast  a  stumbling-block 
before  the  children  of  IsraeW"  On  the  assump- 
tion to  which  we  were  led  in  examining  the 
reference  to  the  Nicolaitanes  in  the  message  to 
Ephesus,  we  have  here  to  deal  with  a  distinct 
form  of  error.  Why  the  name  of  Balaam  should 
be  the  representative  of  that  false  doctrine,  what 
was  its  nature  and  its  practical  working,  in  what 
relation  it  stood  to  the  teaching  of  other  parts 
of  the  New  Testament  on  the  same  subject,  are 
all  questions  of  much  interest.  It  will  be  con- 
venient to  deal  w^ith  the  two  last  first,  and 
to  trace  the  history  of  the  controversy  as  to 
elhwXodvra,  or  ''  things  sacrificed  to  idols." 

Every  convert  from  Heathenism  to  the  faith 
of  Christ  would  acknowledge  that  he  was  bound 
to  abstain  from  any  participation,  direct  or 
indirect,  in  the  false  worship  which  he  renounced 

^  The  anomalous  dative  toj  BaXoK,  instead  of  the  accusative 
common  after  verbs  of  teaching,  which  is  found  in  the  better 
MSS.,  must,  I  believe,  be  explained  as  an  instance  of  the  imper- 
fect knowledge  of  Greek  which  led  to  the  use  of  an  idiom  more 
or  less  Hebraic  rather  than  as  a  deliberate  use  of  the  datiznis 
com?nodi. 


112  The  Epistle  to  Pergamos. 

at  baptism.  But  the  question  what  acts  involved 
an  indirect  participation  was  one  that  gave  rise 
to  a  perplexing  casuistry,  and  yet  could  not  be 
avoided.  Was  the  convert  to  go  out  of  the 
world  and  turn  from  all  social  gatherings  but 
those  of  his  own  community  ?  Was  he  to  refuse 
to  join  in  the  public  meals,  at  inns  or  elsewhere, 
which  travel  made  almost  indispensable  ?  If  he 
did  so  refuse,  he  cut  himself  off  not  only  from 
the  pleasures,  but  from  the  duties  and  oppor- 
tunities of  family  and  social  companionship. 
Yet  if  he  accepted  the  invitation,  there  was  the 
risk  that  he  might  be  eating  of  the  flesh  of  sheep 
or  ox  which  the  host  had  himself  sacrificed,  as 
a  festive  thank-offering,  to  Zeus  or  Apollo,  or 
that  the  wine  which  he  drank  might  have  been 
poured  out  as  a  libation.  If  he  did  so  eat,  was 
he  not,  in  "  eating  of  the  sacrifice,"  a  partaker 
in  the  worship,  eating  the  flesh  and  drinking 
the  cup  which  belonged  to  the  demons  that  he 
had  learnt  to  identify  with  the  gods  whom  the 
Heathen  worshipped?  (i  Cor.  xi.  20.)  Yet 
another  case  presented  itself  which  followed  the 
convert  even  to  his  own  home.  Of  the  sacrifices 
that  were  offered  in  Heathen  temples  the  greater 
part  became  the  perquisite  of  the  priests.  When 
they  had  more  than  they  could  consume  them- 
selves they  sold  it  to  the  meat-dealers  of  the 


The  Epistle  to  Pergamos.  113 

market.  The  Christian  convert,  therefore,  could 
never  be  sure  that  what  he  bought  had  not  been 
thus  offered,  and  the  sensitive  conscience  was 
harassed  w^ith  the  tormenting  thought  of  an 
unknown  and  involuntary  transgression,  which 
yet  brought  with  it  defilement  and  condemnation. 
The  Jew  might  avoid  the  danger  by  dealing 
only,  as,  for  the  most  part,  Jews  deal  now,,  with 
a  butcher  of  his  own  persuasion ;  but  this  im- 
plied a  more  settled  and  organised  society  than 
that  of  most  Christian  communities  in  the  early 
days  of  the  Church's  life,  and  many  years  would 
probably  pass  away  before  the  convert  was  able 
to  meet  with  a  Christian  butcher.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  most  cases,  the  Jewish  butcher  would 
probabl}'  refuse  to  supply  him  ;  or,  if  that  were 
not  the  case,  would  only  do  so  under  the  re- 
strictions (to  the  Gentile  burdensome  and 
vexatious)  of  the  Mosaic  law  of  clean  and 
unclean  meats. 

How  near  the  surface  the  question  lay  is  seen 
by  the  fact  that  it  occupied  an  almost  co-ordi- 
nate place  with  that  of  circumcision,  and  entered 
into  what  then  appeared  as  the  great  charter 
of  the  freedom  of  the  Gentile  converts.  The 
decision  of  the  Apostles  and  Elders  in  that  first 
Council  at  Jerusalem  was  practically  of  the 
nature  of  a  compromise.  On  the  one  hand  the 
9 


TI4  The  Epistle  to  Perganios. 

converts  were  released  from  the  necessity  of 
circumcision ;  on  the  other,  by  way  of  make- 
weight, they  were  commanded  to  "  abstain  from 
meats  offered  to  idols,  and  from  blood,  and  from 
things  strangled,  and  from  fornication "  (Acts 
xv.  20) .  The  grouping  of  these  latter  prohibitions 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  they  were  popularly  re- 
cognised as  among  the  precepts  of  Noah,  which 
were  held  to  be  binding  upon  all  his  descendants, 
and  were  required,  therefore,  even  by  the  more 
liberal  Rabbis,  of  all  ''  proselytes  of  the  gate ;  " 
while  those  who  aspired  to  the  higher  blessed- 
ness of  the  children  of  Abraham  had  to 
qualify  themselves  as  *'  proselytes  of  right- 
eousness "  by  the  sign  of  circumcision.  The 
decree  was,  as  I  have  said,  received  at  first 
with  a  joyous  welcome.  But  soon  new  diffi- 
culties presented  themselves  as  rising  out  of 
the  broad  general  language  in  which  it  spoke. 
Did  any  eating  of  meat  that  had  been  sacri- 
ficed to  idols,  even  if  unconscious,  involve  the 
eater  in  pollution  ?  Others,  at  a  distance  from 
Jerusalem,  Gentile  converts,  reasoning  from 
broad  principles  to  bold  conclusions,  rhight 
question  the  obligation  of  that  which  seemed 
to  rest  on  no  great  principle,  but  to  represent 
a  policy  of  conciliation  and  concession.  If  an 
idol  was  '*  nothing  in  the  world,"  a  powerless 


The  Epistle  to  Pe^'gamos,  1 1 5 

block  of  marble  or  of  wood,  how  could  it  taint 
the  flesh  of  the  victim  sacrificed  to  it,  and  make 
the  creature  of  God,  in  itself  good,  unfit  for 
human  food  ?  Some,  waxing  yet  bolder,  seem 
to  have  contended  that  they  might  even  take 
their  place  in  a  public  banquet  within  the 
precincts  of  an  idol  temple,  so  long  as  they  were 
not  required  to  join  in  any  formal  act  of  worship, 
(i  Cor.  viii.  10.) 

Such  was  the  state  of  things  which  St.  Paul 
found  at  Corinth.  There  the  more  scrupulous 
party,  under  the  influence  of  Jewish  feeling, 
was  obviously  the  weaker;  the  bolder  were  also 
the  stronger,  exulting  in  their  knowledge,  their 
rights,  their  independence.  It  is  remarkable 
that,  in  arguing  with  these  latter,  St.  Paul 
never  makes  even  the  most  distant  allusion  to 
the  decree  of  the  Council  of  Jerusalem,  though 
he  himself  had  been  at  least  a  consenting  party 
to  it.  For  some  reason  of  policy  or  principle, 
because  the  Corinthians  would  have  demurred 
to  the  authority  of  the  Council,  or  from  a 
characteristic  love  of  going  to  the  bottom  of  a 
matter,  he  discusses  the  questions  of  casuistry 
that  thus  presented  themselves  on  the  ground, 
not  of  authority,  but  of  the  rights  of  conscience. 
Sin  lay  in  the  will,  and  therefore  an  involuntary 
act  done  in  ignorance  was  no  transgression  ; 
9* 


1 1 6  The  Epistle  to  Pergamos. 

and  as  the  act  was  in  its  own  nature  neutral, 
the  man  need  not  be  over-anxious  to  ask 
questions  the  answer  to  which  might  involve 
him  in  perplexity.  Where,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  convert  was,  as  it  were,  openly  challenged 
or  tempted  to  partake  of  the  sacrificial  food, 
he  was  to  abstain,  yielding  up  the  abstract 
right,  which  St.  Paul  fully  recognised,  lest  he 
should  wound  the  conscience  of  any  other  less 
strong-minded  than  himself,  (i  Cor.  x.  21.) 
For  a  like  reason  the  Apostle,  while  apparently 
admitting,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  the  abstract 
possibility  of  a  blameless  participation  in  a 
banquet,  even  in  the  idol  temple,  first  earnestly 
dissuades  men  from  it,  on  the  ground  of  its 
perilous  consequences  to  others;  and  then,  on 
what  more  truly  expressed  his  own  convictions, 
as  involving  a  formal  recognition  of  the  false 
worship  which  the  Christian  had  renounced  in 
his  baptism,     (i  Cor.  x.  1S-21.) 

I  have  dwelt  at  this  length  on  the  position 
occupied  by  St.  Paul  in  this  controversy  because 
it  has  been  maintained  by  Renan  and  other 
recent  writers,  who  see  in  the  different  aspects 
of  teaching  presented  by  the  writers  of  the  New 
Testament  Epistles  not  only  diversities  of  gifts, 
but  antagonism  of  principles,  that  the  strong 
language  of  the  Apocalypse  is  intended  to  be 


The  Epistle  to  Pergamos,  1 1 7 

a  condemnation  of  his  teaching ;  that  he  is,  in 
fact,  the  Balaam  whom  St.  John  seeks  to  hold  up 
to  the  abhorrence  of  the  Churches,  just  as  others 
have  identified  him  with  the  Simon  Magus 
who  appears  as  "  the  hero  of  the  romance 
of  heresy "  in  the  strange  controversial  novel 
known  as  the  ''  Clementine  Recognitions."-^ 
It  can,  I  believe,  be  shewn  that  this  theory- 
is  altogether  destitute  of  probability;  that  the 
minds  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  John  were  in  this 
respect  in  perfect  harmony ;  that  even  dealing 
with  the  Message  as  coming  from,  and  not 
to,  the  latter  Apostle,  it  is  such  as  the  former 
would  have  accepted  and  rejoiced  in. 

And  (i)  I  note  that  those  who  are  condemned 
by  the  Message  are  precisely  those  whom  St« 
Paul  urges,  on  grounds  of  a  moral  expediency 
so  high  that  it  becomes  a  duty,  to  refrain  from 
the  exercise  of  the  freedom  and  the  right  of 
which  they  boasted.  It  was  to  be  expected  that 
some  in  their  self-will  would  harden  themselves 
against  the  appeal ;  that  they  might  even  use 
St.  PauFs  name,  and  boast  that  they  were  more 

^  Comp.  Re  nan's  "St.  Paul."  "Les  chapitres  ii.  et  iii.  de 
r Apocalypse  sont  un  cri  de  haine  centre  Paul  et  ses  amis,"  p. 
367.  So  assuming  that  Balaam  is  translated  into  Nicolas,  ' '  un 
seducteur  paien,  qui  eut  des  visions  quoique  infidele,  un  homme 
qui  engageant  le  peuple  a  pecher  avec  filles  des  paiennes,  parut 
le  vrai  type  de  Paul,"  p.  304. 


ii8  The  Epistle  to  Pergmnos. 

consistent  with  his  principles  than  he  was  him- 
self. This,  we  know,  was  what  Marcion  and 
his  followers  actually  did  when  they  claimed 
a  like  liberty  for  themselves  ;  and  Marcion  may 
well  have  had  forerunners  among  the  Gnostics 
of  the  apostolic  age.  And  it  would  be  but 
natural  that  those  who  took  this  attitude  to- 
wards one  of  the  restrictions  imposed  by  the 
Council  at  Jerusalem  should  act  in  like  manner 
towards  another,  and  look  at  the  sin  of  forni- 
cation from  the  Heathen,  and  not  from  the 
Jewish  or  the  Christian,  point  of  view,  as  a 
thing  in  itself  indifferent ;  a  sensual  pleasure,  it 
was  true,  but  not  more  worthy  of  blame  than 
that  of  eating  meat  that  had  been  offered  in 
sacrifice  to  idols,  or  food  which  the  Jewish 
law  prohibited  as  unclean.  The  very  grouping 
of  the  apostolic  decree  might  seem  at  first  sight 
to  favour  the  view  that  the  prohibitions  were 
of  co-ordinate  obligation.  The  earnestness  with 
which  St.  Paul  warns  the  Corinthians  against 
falling  back  into  the  old  vicious  habits  in  which 
they  had  once  indulged  with  no  consciousness 
of  sin,  the  passing  reference  (i  Cor.  vi.  13)  to 
"  meats  for  the  belly  and  the  belly  for  meats," 
in  connection  with  those  habits,  shew  how 
closely  the  two  were  connected  in  his  own 
mind  and  in  the  influences  that  were  at  work 


The  Epistle  to  Pergamos.  1 1 9 

in  the  Church  to  which  he  wrote.  The  habitual 
license  of  the  orgies  of  many  Heathen  festivals, 
the  prevalence  of  prostitution  in  the  precincts 
of  many  temples,  the  presence,  in  that  of 
Aphrodite,  of  the  harlot  priestesses  who  made 
Corinth  infamous,  all  brought  the  two  evils 
of  which  St.  Paul  wrote  into  very  close  com.- 
bination. 

(2)  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  strange 
prominence  given  to  the  name  of  Balaam  in  the 
later  writings  of  the  New  Testament  began,  not 
with  the  real  or  supposed  anti-Pauline  teachers, 
but  with  that  Apostle  himself.  It  was  in  his 
warnings  to  the  Corinthians  (i  Cor.  x.  8)  that 
that  dark  history  of  the  days  when  Israel  abode 
in  Shittim  was  first  recalled  to  the  memory 
of  the  Christian  Church:  "Neither  let  us  com- 
mit fornication,  as  some  of  them  committed, 
and  fell  in  one  day  three  and  twenty  thousand." 
Then,  as  in  later  days,  the  two  sins  had  gone 
together,  and  the  Israelites  had  both  committed 
whoredom  with  the  daughters  of  Moab  and 
joined  themselves  to  Baal-peor,  and  eaten 
the  sacrifices  of  their  gods  (Num.  xxv.  1-3). 
When    St.    Peter,  ^  then,   speaks   of    the  false 

^  I  assume  the  genuineness  of  the  second  Epistle  that  bears 
the  name  of  Peter  ;  but  it  makes  no  difference  in  my  argument  if 
it  is  treated  as  an  instance  of  pseudonymous  authorship. 


120         The  Epistle  to  Pergamos, 

teachers,  who  had  ''eyes  full  of  adultery"  and 
beguiled  unstable  souls,"  as  following  the  way 
of  Balaam  the  son  of  Bosor  (2  Pet.  ii.  14,  15) ; 
when  St.  Jude  describes  those  who  "  corrupt 
themselves  in  what  they  know  naturally  as 
brute  beasts "  as  "  going  greedily  after  the 
error  of  Balaam  for  reward  ; "  when  St.  John 
records  the  condemnation  of  those  "  that  hold 
the  doctrine  of  Balaam ,  who  taught  Balak  to 
cast  a  stumhling-block  before  the  children  of 
Israel,  to  eat  things  sacrificed  unto  idols.,  and 
to  commit  fornication,'"  they  are  not  glancing 
obliquely  and  with  the  glance  of  hate  at  the 
teaching  of  St.  Paul,  but  are  actually  echo- 
ing it. 

(3)  It  may  be  noted,  as  accounting  for  the 
stronger  and  more  vehement  language  of  the 
Apocalypse,  considered  even  as  a  simply  human 
book,  that  the  conditions  of  the  case  had  altered. 
Christians  and  Heathens  were  no  longer  dwell- 
ing  together,  as  at  Corinth,  with  comparative 
slight  interruption  to  their  social  interco  "■ 
but  were  divided  by  a  sharp  line  of  demarcs  ", 
The  eating  of  things  sacrificed  to  idols  ^*'s  l 
and  more  a  crucial  test,  involving  a*'>  aro 
shrinking  from  the  open  confession  o"^  a"l  vns 
tian's  faith.  Disciples  who  sat  at  m^at 
idol's  te-mple   were   making  merry  v  ' 


The  Epistle  to  Pergamos.  121 

whose  hands  were  red  with  the  blood  of  their 
fellow-worshippers  and  whose  lips  had  uttered 
blaspheming  scaffs  against  the  Holy  Name. 

And  to  this  teaching,  as  to  the  kindred  doc- 
trine of  the  Nicolaitanes/  arriving  at  the  same 
goal  by  a  different  path,  o'erleaping  itself  from 
an  overstrained  asceticism  and  falling  on  the 
other  side,  scorning  the  body,  and  therefore 
indifferent  to  its  acts,  the  Angel  of  the  Chm'ch 
of  Pergamos  had  offered  but  a  feeble  and  slack 
resistance.  There  was  no  righteous  hatred  such 
as  won  the  praise  of  his  Lord  for  the  Angel 
of  the  Church  of  Ephesus.  Tolerance  of  these 
debasing  forms  of  evil  took  its  place  among  the 
^^  few  things''  for  which  he  was  reproved.  And 
a  sharp  warning  both  for  himself  and  for  the 
false  teachers  followed  on  the  reproof:  ''Repent, 
or  else  I  will  come  to  thee  quickly,  and  will  fight 
against  them  with  the  sword  of  my  month.''  There 
is,  it  will  be  seen,  a  marked  distinction  between 
^f' "  two  clauses.  To  the  chief  pastor  of  the 
.  :^h,  in  his  separate  personal  responsibility 
his  moral  feebleness,  the  Lord  "  comes 
y?;-'  ijy!."^  The  words  are  important  as  shewing 
'      c  ^     J ''^coming  quickly"   had,  in  the  mind 

ave  al^-eady  expressed  my  dissent  from  the  view  that  the 
laitane^  Were  identical  with  the  followers  of  Balaam.     The 
«Mv         -§l^^^  "'  ^^^  ^^^^  seems  to  me  the  nearest  approximation 
[^^i^/IPQ^roit  to  their  real  relations  to  each  other. 

;  -*^ 
.  -♦-  . 


■my^.:' 


122  The  Epistle  to  Pergamos. 

of  the  Apostle,  quite  another  meaning  besides 
that  of  the  great  final  Advent.  In  ways  which 
the  man  reproved  would  feel,  in  the  chances 
and  changes  of  life,  in  failure  and  disappoint- 
ment, in  suffering  and  shame,  He  would  visit 
the  offending  pastor  who  did  not  repent  and 
rouse  himself  to  a  nobler  energy  from  conviction. 
But  with  the  others  he  would  "  make  war  with 
the  sword  of  his  mouth.  There  may  be  in 
this,  as  many  have  thought,  a  reference  to  the 
fact  that  Balaam  the  son  of  Beor  was  slain  with 
the  sword  of  the  children  of  Israel,  which  was 
also  the  sword  of  God  ;  but  I  agree  with  Alford 
in  thinking  that  this  reference  is,  to  say  the 
least,  remote,  and  that  the  words  receive  a 
sufficient  explanation  from  the  imagery  of  the 
immediate  context.  And  if,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  sword  of  the  Spirit  is  here  also  the  Word 
of  God, — that  which  cometh  from  the  mouth 
of  the  Lord,— then  we  may  well  adopt  the  in- 
terpretation given  by  Grotius  as  leading  us  to 
the  true  and  spiritual  meaning  of  the  passage. 
In  that  warfare  the  weapons  would  not  be  carnal. 
He,  the  Lord,  would  raise  up  faithful  and  true 
prophets,  and  his  word  should  be  in  their  mouths 
also  as  a  sharp  sword,  and  they  would  wield  that 
sword  effectively  and  slay  the  monstrous  forms 
of  error  that  were  warring  against  the  truth. 


The  Epistle  to  Pergamos.  123 

The  promise  "  to  him  that  overcometh  "  pre- 
sents in  this  case  points  at  once  of  peculiar 
difficulty  and  special  interest.  The  meaning  of 
the  ''manna''  appears,  perhaps,  at  first  not  far 
to  seek.  Those  who  remember  with  what  ful- 
ness St.  John,  and  he  alone,  records  the  teach- 
ing in  which  his  Master  claimed  to  be  the 
Bread  of  God,  the  living  bread  that  came  down 
from  heaven,  of  which,  if  a  man  ate,  he  should 
live  for  ever,  as  contrasted  with  the  manna  in 
the  wilderness,  which  had  no  power  to  save 
from  death  (John  vi.  33,  50),  will  be  ready  to 
admit  that  the  words  now  before  us  must  have 
recalled  that  teaching,  and  that  the  manna 
which  was  to  be  the  reward  of  the  conqueror 
was  the  fruition  of  the  ineffable  sweetness  of  that 
divine  Presence.  Those  who  resisted  the  temp- 
tation to  join  the  idol's  feast  in  the  idol's  temple 
should  be  admitted  to  that  heavenly  feast  in  the 
eternal  temple,  which  was  also  the  palace  of  the 
great  King.  But  the  epithet  ''hidden''  suggests 
more  than  this.  In  the  current  belief  of  the 
Jews  the  sacred  treasures  of  the  Temple,  which 
had  disappeared  when  Jerusalem  was  laid  waste 
by  the  army  of  the  Chaldeans,  had  not  been 
allowed  to^  perish.  The  Prophet  Jeremiah  had 
carried  them  to  "the  mountain,  where  Moses 
climbed    up    and   saw   the    heritage   of    God " 


124  ^^^^^  Epistle  to  Pe7^gamos. 

(2  Mace.  ii.  4).,  i.e.  the  heights  of  Pisgah,  and 
there  they  were  kept,  no  man  knowing  of  the 
place,  "  until  the  time  that  God  shall  gather 
his  people  again  together  and  shew  them  his 
mercy."  It  was  not  strange  that  the  imagina- 
tion of  devout  Jews  should  dwell  on  that  legend, 
and  picture  to  themselves  the  restoration,  not 
only  of  the  Shekinah  and  the  Urim  and  the 
Thummim,  and  the  ark  and  the  tables  of  stone, 
but  also  of  the  manna  that  had  been  thus  hidden. 
This,  and  the  general  thought  that  the  hidden 
and  the  precious  were,  for  the  most  part,  co- 
extensive terms  (as  in  Psa.  xvii.  14,  "  Whose 
bellies  thou  fiUest  with  thy  hid  treasures  "),  will 
explain  why  the  word  was  chosen  to  heighten  all 
that  was  conveyed  by  the  promise  of  the  manna. 
Whatever  men  had  dreamt  of  blessedness  and 
joy  should  be  surpassed  by  the  taste  of  that 
''hidden  manna,"  the  gladness  of  that  life 
which  is  ''hid  with  Christ  in  God"  (Col.  iii.  3). 
The  "  white  stone ^  and  the  new  name  written  on 
itf  which  no  man  knoweth  saving  he  that  receiveth 
it,''  present  difficulties  of  another  kind,  chiefly, 
as  by  a  strange  paradox,  through  the  very  ease 
with  which  they  admit  of  interpretations  more 
or  less  probable.  In  the  symbolism  of  colours, 
which,  as  having  its  ultimate  root  in  impres- 
sions of  pain  or  pleasure  made  upon  the  senses, 


The  Epistle  to  Pergamos.  125 

might  almost  be  called  natural,  and  is,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  all  but  universal,  white,  in  its  bright- 
ness and  purity,  had  been  associated  with  joy 
and  gladness,  with  victory  and  triumph.  So,  in 
a  practice  which,  though  originating,  it  was  said, 
with  the  half-civilised  tribes  of  Thrace  or  Scythia, 
had  become  general,  days  of  festivity  were  noted 
with  a  white,  those  of  calamity  with  a  black, 
stone.  So,  when  the  vote  of  an  assembly  as  to 
the  guilt  of  an  accused  person  was  taken  by 
ballot,  white  stones  were  the  symbol  of  an 
acquittal,  black  of  a  condemnation.  It  has, 
accordingly,  been  contended,  with  at  least  much 
plausibility,  that  this  is  the  significance  of  the 
"white  stone "  in  the  promise  now  before  us. 
The  conqueror  in  the  great  strife  with  evil, 
whatever  opprobrium  he  might  incur  in  the 
sight  of  men,  whatever  sentence  he  might  re- 
ceive at  the  hands  of  an  earthly  judge,  would 
be  received  as  justified  and  acquitted  by  the 
Eternal  Judge.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  can 
scarcely  be  said  that  the  symbol  of  a  mere 
acquittal  would  be  an  adequate  expression  of 
the  reward  promised  to  him  that  overcometh. 
A  verdict  of  "  not  guilty,"  which,  on  this  inter- 
pretation, would  exhaust  the  meaning  of  the 
promise,  could  hardly  take  its  place  as  co- 
ordinate  with   the    "  crown    of    life,"    or    with 


126  The  Epistle  to  Pergamos. 

**  the   tree   of  life   which   is   in   the   midst  of  the 
paradise  of  God.^^ 

Partly  on  the  ground  of  this  inadequacy, 
partly  on  the  general  principle  that  the  source 
of  the  Apocalyptic  imagery  must  be  sought, 
not  in  the  customs  of  Heathen  antiquity,  but  in 
the  more  venerable  symbolism  of  the  Jewish 
ritual,  it  has  been  contended  by  Archbishop 
Trench,  following  a  German  commentator 
(Zullig),  that  the  ''white  stone,"  associated  as  it 
is  with  one  of  the  lost  treasures  of  the  sanctuary 
of  Israel,  must  be  interpreted  as  another  of  those 
treasures,  and  be  identified  accordingly  with  the 
Urim  and  Thummim  of  the  High  Priest's  vest- 
ments, on  the  assumption  that  they  consisted  of 
one  or  more  stones  of  translucent  and  colourless 
purity,  of  the  nature  of  diamond  or  rock  crystal. 
There  is  so  much  in  this  view  of  these  **  stones 
oracular  "  that  commends  itself  to  me,  that  it 
is  not  without  reluctance  I  am  brought  to  the 
conviction,  as  I  have  elsewhere  shewn,'  that  it 
is  not  applicable  to  the  passage  now  before  us. 
Not  only  were  the  Urim  and  Thummim  almost 
or  altogether  beyond  the  horizon  of  the  thoughts 
of  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament,  so  that 
throughout  its  pages  there  is  not  a  single  allu- 
sion to  them,  not  even  where  we  should  have 

'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  art.  "  Urim  and  Thummin." 


The  Epistle  to  Pergamos.  127 

most  looked  for  it,  in  the  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews, unless  it  be  in  this  obscure  and  debate- 
able  passage ;  but  the  word  used  by  St.  John 
is  not  that  which  throughout  the  LXX.  and  the 
New  Testament  is  used  of  precious  stones  and 
gems  (Xt^o?),  but  that  which  describes  the 
secondary  and  derived  use  of  stones  or  pebbles 
in  social  or  political  life  (a/ttJc^o?).  On  these 
grounds  it  seems  to  me  that  there  is  a  strong 
prima  facie  presumption  against  Archbishop 
Trench's  view ;  nor  can  I  admit  that  it  is  coun- 
terbalanced by  the  view  (which  I  have  shewn, 
in  dealing  with  the  message  to  the  Church  of 
Smyrna,  to  be  unproven)  that  all  allusions  to 
Heathen  usages  are  outside  the  circle  of  Apoca- 
lyptic symbolism.  On  the  whole,  then,  with  one 
important  modification,  I  am  disposed  to  adopt 
Ewald's  view,  who  sees  in  the  stone,  or  •^r]^o<^ 
of  the  promise,  the  tessera  hospitalis,  by  which, 
in  virtue  of  form  or  characters  inscribed  on  it, 
he  who  possessed  it  could  claim  from  the  friend 
who  gave  it,  at  any  distance  of  time,  a  frank 
and  hearty  welcome.  What  I  would  suggest, 
as  an  addition  to  this,  rises  out  of  the  proba- 
bility, almost  the  certainty,  that  some  such 
tessera,  or  ticket — a  stone  with  the  name  of  the 
guest  written  on  it — was  given  to  those  who 
were  invited  to  partake,  within  the  precincts  of 


128  The  Epistle  to  Pergamos. 

the  temple,  of  the  feast  that  consisted  wholly, 
or  in  part,  of  the  meat  that  had  been  offered  as 
a  sacrifice.^  On  this  view,  the  second  part  of 
the  promise  is  brought  into  harmony  with  the 
first,  and  is  made  more  directly  appropriate :  he 
who  had  the  courage  to  refuse  that  tessera  to 
the  feast  that  defiled  should  receive  another 
that  would  admit  him  to  the  supper  of  the 
Great  King. 

This  hypothesis  gives,  it  will  be  seen  at  once, 
a  fresh  vividness  to  the  closing  words  which 
speak  of  the  "  new  name "  that  was  to  be 
written  on  it.  Here  we  are  at  once  within  the 
circle  of  familiar  prophetic  language.  The 
^' new  name''  had  been  to  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah 
the  formula  for  expressing  the  new  life  of 
blessedness  in  store  for  those  to  whom  it  was 
applied.  The  land  that  had  been  forsaken  and 
abandoned  to  destruction  should  be  called 
"  Hephzibah,"  as  once  more  the  delight  of 
her  Lord.  The  daughter  of  Zion,  that  had 
sat  desolate  as  a  widow,  should  be  "  Beulah," 
as  a  bride  over  whom  the  bridegroom  once 
more  rejoiced  (Isa.  Ixii.  2-4;  comp.  Ixv.  15). 
Jerusalem    herself    was   to   be    known    by   the 

^  Some  such  iessenr,  giving  the  bearer  admission  to  the  theatre 
of  Dionysos  at  Athens,  are,  if  I  remember  rightly,  to  be  seen 
among  the  Greek  antiquities  of  the  British  Museum. 


The  Epistle  to  Pergamos,         129 

mystic  name  of  the  "  Lord  our  Righteousness  " 
(Jer.  xxxiii.  16).  In  his  own  case  and  that  of 
his  brother,  as  in  that  of  Simon  Barjona — in 
Peter,  the  ''  Rock,"  and  Boanerges,  the  ''  Sons 
of  Thunder  " — the  Apostle  had  known  a  new 
name  given  which  was  the  symbol  of  a  higher 
life  and  a  character  idealised  in  its  gifts.  And 
so  in  this  case  the  inner  truth,  that  lies  below 
the  outward  imagery,  would  seem  to  be  that 
the  conqueror,  when  received  at  the  heavenly 
feast,  should  find  upon  the  stone,  or  tessera,  that 
gave  him  the  right  of  entrance,  a  "  new  name," 
the  token  of  a  character  transformed  and  per- 
fected, a  name  the  full  significance  of  which 
should  be  known  only  to  him  who  was  con- 
scious of  the  transformation,  just  as  in  the 
experiences  of  our  human  life,  '^the  heart 
knoweth  his  own  bitterness,  and  the  stranger 
doth  not  intermeddle  with  his  joy "  (Prov. 
xiv.  10). 

The  apparent  parallelism  of  the  description 
in  chap.  xix.  of  Him  who  "  was  called  Faithful 
and  True,"  whose  "  name  was  called  the  Word 
of  God,"  and  who  yet  had  besides  *'  these  a 
name  written  that  no  man  knew  but  he  him- 
self" (xix.  11-13),  has  led  some  interpreters  to 
suppose  that  here  also  it  is  the  name  of  the 
Lord,  new,  wonderful,  mysterious,  as  expressing 


130         The  Epistle  to  Pergamos. 

some  relation  between  Him  and  his  people 
which  the  names  as  yet  revealed  do  not  perfectly 
embody,  that  is  promised  to  him  that  over- 
cometh.  A  closer  study  of  the  parallelism  will, 
however,  I  believe,  confirm  the  view  which  has 
been  given  above.  As  the  Lord  alone  knows 
the  name  which  He  bears,  so  the  name  written 
upon  the  stone  given  to  the  conqueror  is  known 
only  to  him  that  receiveth  it.  What  is  this  but 
the  expression,  in  the  language  of  symbolism,  of 
the  truth  which  the  writer  of  the  Apocalypse 
expressed  afterwards  in  language  more  purely 
abstract  and  ideal  :  "  Now  are  we  the  sons  of 
God,  and  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall 
be  :  but  we  know  that,  when  he  shall  appear, 
we  shallbe  like  him  :  for  we  shall  see  him  as  he 
is  "  ?  (i  John  iii.  2.)  Only  when  humanity 
has  become  partaker  of  the  Divine  nature  will 
it  be  able  to  comprehend  the  mystery  of  His 
being  who  is  at  once  divine  and  human.  And 
yet  in  that  likeness  of  all  the  saved  to  their 
common  Lord  there  shall  be  no  mere  uniformity. 
There,  also,  as  the  manna  in  the  Jewish 
legends  was  said  to  taste  to  each  man  like  the 
food  in  which  he  most  delighted,  each  soul 
shall  recognise  in  the  work  which  Christ  has 
done  for  it  that  of  which  none  can  know  the 
wonder  nor  the  sweetness  but  himself. 


V. 

THE  EPISTLE  TO  THYATIRA 


lO^ 


THE  REVELATION. 

CHAPTER   II. 

i8  And  unto  the  angel  of  the  church  in  Thyatira  write  ;  These 
things  saith  the  Son  of  God,  who  hath  his  eyes  Hlce  unto  a  flame  of 
fire,  and  his  feet  are  like  fine  brass  ; 

19  I  know  thy  works,  and  charity,  and  service,  and  faith,  and  thy 
patience,  and  thy  works  ;  and  the  last  to  be  more  than  the  first. 

20  Notwithstanding  I  have  a  few  things  against  thee,  because  thou 
sufferest  that  woman  Jezebel,  which  calleth  herself  a  prophetess,  to 
teach  and  to  seduce  my  servants  to  commit  fornication,  and  to  eat 
things  sacrificed  unto  idols. 

21  And  I  gave  her  space  to  repent  of  her  fornication  ;  and  she 
repented  not. 

22  Behold,  I  will  cast  her  into  a  bed,  and  them  that  commit 
adultery  with  her  into  great  tribulation,  except  they  repent  of  their 
deeds. 

23  And  I  will  kill  her  children  with  death  ;  and  all  the  churches 
shall  know  that  I  am  he  which  searcheth  the  reins  and  hearts  :  and 
1  will  give  unto  every  one  of  you  according  to  yoiir  works. 

24  But  unto  you  I  say,  and  unto  the  rest  in  Thyatira,  as  many  as 
have  not  this  doctrine,  and  which  have  not  known  the  depths  of 
Satan,  as  they  speak  ;  I  will  put  upon  you  none  other  burden. 

25  But  that  which  ye  have  already  hold  fast  till  I  come. 

26  And  he  that  overcometh,  and  keepeth  my  works  unto  the  end, 
to  him  will  I  give  power  over  the  nations  : 

27  And  he  shall  rule  them  with  a  rod  of  iron  ;  as  the  vessels  of 
a  potter  shall  they  be  broken  to  shivers  :  even  as  I  received  of  my 
Father. 

28  And  I  will  give  him  the  morning  star. 

29  He  that  hath  an  ear,  let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit  saith  unto  the 
churches. 


V. 

LITTLE  as  we  know  of  the  general  history 
of  this  Church  in  the  apostolic  age,  it 
has  at  least  one  point  of  contact  with  the 
record  of  the  life  and  labours  of  St.  Paul.  The 
purple-seller  of  the  city  of  Thyatira,  who  went 
with  other  women  to  "  the  place  where  prayer 
was  wont  to  be  made,"  to  the  oratory  bythe  river- 
side at  Philippi,  and  ''whose  heart  the  Lord 
opened  that  she  attended  unto  the  things  that 
were  spoken  of  Paul"  (Acts  xvi.  14),  is  among 
the  most  familiar  figures  in  St.  Luke's  history 
of  the  mission-work  of  the  Church.  The  facts 
that  connect  themselves  with  that  mention  of 
her  name  are  also  so  generally  known  that  it 
will  not  be  necessary  to  do  more  than  briefly 
refer  to  them. 

(i)  Thyatira,  situated  geographically,  as  it 
stands  in  the  order  of  the  Messages,  between 
Pergamos  and  Sardis,  owed,  if  not  its  origin,  yet 
its  importance  to  the  fact  of  its  being  one  of  the 
Macedonian  colonies  founded  by  Alexander  the 


134  The  Epistle  to  Thyatira. 

I  Great  after  his  conquest  of  the  Persian  Empire. 
As  such,  it  was  natural,  even  after  the  lapse  of 
three  centuries,  that  it  should  have  many  links 
that  connected  it  with  the  mother  country,  and 
of  this  the  presence  of  Lydia  at  Philippi  may 
fairly  be  taken  as  an  instance,  (2)  Inscriptions, 
the  date  of  which  is  referred  to  the  period 
between  Vespasian  and  Caracalla,  shew  that  the 
city  contained  many  corporate  guilds,  which 
were  united  together  by  common  pursuits  and 
religious  rites,  and  that  of  these  the  guild  of 

^  dyers  was  one  of  the  most  prominent.  That 
art  was  indeed  common  to  a  good  many  of  the 
Asiatic  cities,  and  the  commercial  fame  of 
Miletus  in  particular  mainly  rested  on  it;  but 
of  all  these,  Thyatira  was  the  only  one   that 

>/had  any  connection  with  MacedjDnia.  When 
we  meet  with  Lydia  at  Philippi,  she  is  already 
*'  one  that  worshipped  God,"  a  half-proselyte, 
i.e.  to  Judaism ;  and  we  may  reasonably  infer 
from  this  the  presence  of  a  Jewish  element, 
more  or  less  influential,  among  the  population 
of  the  city  from  which  she  came.  The  in- 
habitants seem  indeed  to  have  presented,  from 
the  names  that  appear  on  their  monuments, 
a   greater  mingling   of   races   than  was   com- 

vmonly  to  be  found,  and  included  Macedonians, 
Italians,  Asiatics  (in  the  narrower  sense  of  that 


The  Epistle  to   Thyatira.  135 

word  as  including  the  inhabitants  of  the  Pro- 
consular province  of  Asia),  and  Chaldseans. 
The  chief  object  of  their  cultus  was  Apollo, 
worshipped  as  the  Sun-God,  under  the  Mace- 
donian name  of  Tyrinnas. 

It  has  been  suggested  by  Dean  Blakesley 
here,  as  before  in  the  case  of  Smyrna,  that  the 
special  words  by  which  the  Lord  of  the  Churches 
describes  Himself  were  determined  by  the 
character  of  the  worship  just  referred  to.  He 
assumes  that  there  was  a  statue  of  Apollo,  of 
gold  and  ivory,  or  of  wood  or  marble  richly  gilt ;. 
that  this  shone  with  a  dazzHng  brightness,  and 
that  the  ^^  eyes  like  aflame  of  fire  and  the  feet  like 
fine  brass  "  were  meant  to  present  the  image  of 
the  Lord  of  the  Churches  as  yet  more  glorious 
and  terrible.  Ingenious  as  the  conjecture  is,  it 
has,  I  believe,  nothing  but  its  ingenuity  to  com- 
mend it.  The  imagery  had  been  already  used 
without  reference  to  any  local  colouring,  aad 
a  reason  for  this  special  application  of  it  may  be 
found  in  the  aspects  of  stern  sovereignty  which 
marks  the  whole  Message.  The  feet  of  chalcoli- 
banus  shall  crush  the  enemies  of  God  as  though 
they  were  the  vessels  of  a  potter. 

The  special  notes  of  praise  assigned  to  the 
Church  of  Thyatira  correspond  in  a  very  marked 
degree  with  those  which  we  find  nrominent  also 


136  The  Epistle  to   Tkyatira. 

in  the  character  of  the  Philippians.  Loving 
ministrations,  patient  endurance,  warm-hearted 
faith,  the  more  feminine  graces  of  the  perfect 
Christian  character  are  dominant  in  both.  It 
has  been  held  by  not  a  few  writers  (notably  by 
Canon  Lightfoot)  that  this  characteristic  of  the 
Philippian  converts  was,  in  part,  owing  to  the 
continued  influence  of  the  iirst  European  prose- 
lyte in  that  Church.^  If  we  remember  that  she 
came  from  Thyatira,  and  not  improbably  re- 
turned to  it  after  a  season,  it  is  at  least 
interesting  to  trace  there  also  the  same  type 
of  character  as  having  been  developed  possibly 
under  the  same  influence.  And  there  were  no 
signs  of  any  falling  off  in  this  respect.  The 
*'  last  works "  were  "  more  than  the  first." 
What  was  wanted  was  that  these  graces  should 
be  balanced  by  others  of  a  more  masculine  type,  • 
by  righteous  zeal  against  evil,  by  the  exercise, 
when  necessary,  of  the  power  to  judge  and  to 
condemn.  Here  also  the  prayer  of  one  who 
knew  what  the  Church  needed  would  have  been 
that  their  *'  love  might  abound  more  and  more 
in  knowledge  and  in  all  judgment "  (Phil.  i.  9). 
We  cannot  enter  on  the  words  which  follow 
without  noticing  the  strange  reading,  not  ''  that 

^   See  also  a  Paper  on  "The  Sisterhood  at  Philippi,"  hi  the 
present  writer's  Biblical  Studies. 


The  Epistle  to   Thyatira,  137 

woman f''  but  "  thy  wife,  Jezebel  "  {jriv  yvvalfca 
(Tov)y  which  would  force  upon  us  the  conclusion 
that  the  work  of  the  Angel,  or  Bishop,  of  the 
Church  of  Thyatira  was  thwarted  by  one  who 
ought  to  have  been  his  helpmate  in  it ;  that  she 
had  become  tainted  with  the  teaching  of  the 
followers  of  Balaam,  and  claimed  as  a  prophetess 
an  authority  that  over-ruled  her  husband's.  I 
cannot  set  aside  that  reading  on  account  of  the 
strangeness  of  the  picture  thus  presented  to  us, 
for  truth  is  often  stranger  than  fiction.^  And 
on  the  principle,  which  has  become  almost  an 
axiom  in  textual  criticism,  that  the  more  difficult 
reading   is   probably  the   true  one,  this,  com- 

^  If  we  receive  this  reading,  we  find  (as  Dr.  Wordsworth  has 
pointed  out)  a  singular  parallel  in  the  Epistle  of  Polycarp  to  the 
Philippian  Church  (c.  xi).  There  also  the  influence  of  women, 
at  first,  as  we  have  seen,  an  element  for  good,  had  become  the 
source  of  evil ;  and  the  wife  of  a  presbyter  named  Valens  is 
mentioned  as  having  encouraged  him  in  his  transgressions. 
Strangely  enough,  too,  the  transgression  is  like  in  kind  to  that 
with  which  the  Message  to  Thyatira  deals.  We  have  indeed 
only  the  Latin  text  of  this  part  of  the  Epistle,  and  there  we  read  : 
' '  Moneo  itaque  vos,  ut  abstineatis  ab  avaritia  et  sitis  casti,  et 
veraces.  ...  Si  quis  non  abstinuerit  ab  avaritia,  ab  idololatria  coin- 
quinabitur."  The  "avaritia  "  of  the  Latin  corresponds,  howevei", 
in  all  probability,  to  the  Greek  TrXeove^ia,  and  that  word,  as  in 
I  Thess.iv.  5,  and  probably  in  i  Cor.  v.  10,  was  used  in  a  secondary 
sense,  as  implying  the  lawless  lust  which  was  regardless  of  the 
rights  of  others.  The  union  of  the  "  avaritia  "  with"  idololatria  " 
almost  forces  this  meaning  upon  us,  and  so  presents  the  two 
as  being  in  as  close  an  alliance  at  Philippi  as  at  Thyatira. 


138  The  Epistle  to   Thyatira. 

mended  as  it  is  by  some  of  the  highest  MSS., 
may  well  claim  admission  into  the  text.  We 
can  understand  the  deliberate  suppression  of  a 
fact  so  startling.  It  is  hard  to  understand  the 
deliberate  insertion  of  a  word  that  would  create 
so  great  a  difficulty.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
must  be  remembered  that  there  is  hardly  any 
limit  to  be  set  to  the  blunders,  pure  and  simple, 
of  transcribers,  and  that  the  pronoun  which 
creates  the  perplexity  is  wanting  in  at  least  one 
(the  Sinaitic  MS.)  of  the  first-class  authorities. 

On  the  whole,  then,  it  seems  best  to  deal  with 
the  passage,  in  any  case  sufficiently  startling, 
without  the  additional  element  of  strangeness 
which  this  reading  gives  it.  I  cannot,  how- 
ever, accept  the  view  taken  by  Alford  and 
others,  that  "  the  woman  Jezebel  "  represents, 
not  a  person,  but  a  sect.  Everything  in  the 
description  has,  if  I  mistake  not,  a  distinctly 
individualising  character,  and  as  such  it  throws 
light  on  some  interesting  social  questions  con- 
nected with  the  history  of  the  Apostolic  Church. 

It  lay  in  the  nature  of  the  Pentecostal  gift 
that  the  powers  which  it  conferred  were  not 
confined  to  one  sex  any  more  than  to  one  class 
or  race.  Daughters  as  well  as  sons  were  to 
prophesy ;  the  Spirit  was  to  be  poured  on  the 
"  handmaids  "  as  well  as  the  "  servants  "  of  the 


The  Epistle  to   Thyatira.  139 

Lord.  (Acts  ii.  17, 18.)  In  Palestine,  doubtless, 
the  exercise  of  these  gifts  would  be  restricted  by 
what  had  become,  in  spite  of  the  older  recollec- 
tions of  Deborah  and  Huldah,  the  traditional 
position  of  women  in  the  religious  life.  It  was 
not  likely  that  a  woman  would  be  bold  enough 
to  speak  in  a  synagogue  where  all  of  her  own 
sex  were  screened  off  from  seeing  or  being  seen. 
In  Greek-speaking  countries,  on  the  other  hand, 
familiar  with  the  thought  of  Sibyls  and  Pythian 
priestesses  and  damsels  like  that  at  Philippi  with 
a  spirit  of  divination  (Acts  xvi.  16),  the  true  gift 
would  more  readily  find  a  sphere  of  action,  and 
would  be  more  exposed,  on  the  one  hand,  to  the 
excitement  and  ecstasy  which  were  among  the 
incidents  of  its  working;  and,  on  the  other, 
to  the  rivalry  of  a  counterfeit  inspiration,  morbid 
in  its  nature,  presenting  phenomena  of  startling 
extravagance  and  easily  enlisted  in  support 
of  the  wild  imaginings  which  were  the  germs 
of  heresy.  Traces  of  that  extravagance  we 
meet  with  in  the  Church  of  Corinth.  Women 
had  appeared  in  the  public  gatherings  of  the 
Church,  and  had  "  prophesied"  with  their  faces 
unveiled,  casting  aside  that  which,  both  in  the 
Jewish  and  Greek  code  of  social  ethics,  was  the 
symbol  of  womanly  reserve,  (i  Cor.  xi.  5-10.) 
At   first,    it   would    seem,   St.    Paul   had  been 


140  The  Epistle  to   Tkyatira. 

content  to  reprove  any  manifestation  of  the 
prophetic  power  that  was  accompanied  by  so 
flagrant  a  disregard  of  the  principles  which,  then 
as  always,  were  the  foundation  of  the  rules 
of  conventional  decorum.  But  second  thoughts 
(I  do  not  think  it  irreverent  to  attribute  second 
thoughts  even  to  an  apostle)  led  him  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  risks  of  abuse  were  so  great 
that  it  was  better  to  restrain  the  practice  which 
was  so  liable  to  them ;  and  accordingly,  both  in 
a  later  chapter  of  the  same  Epistle  (i  Cor.  xiv. 
34>  35)  and  in  the  injunctions  which  he  left  as 
his  last  bequest  to  the  Asiatic  Churches  (i  Tim. 
ii.  II,  12),  he  laid  down  the  rule  that  women 
were  to  be  '*  silent  "  in  all  assembHes  of  the 
Church  at  which  men  were  present,  and  to  con- 
fine the  exercise  of  their  gifts  to  the  work  of 
I  teaching  their  own  sex.  We  know  too  little  of 
the  conditions  under  which  the  four  daughters 
of  Philip  the  Evangelist  prophesied  at  Caesarea 
(Acts  xxi.  8)  to  be  able  to  say  whether  this  was 
an  exception  to  St.  Paul's  rule.  It  is  probable 
enough  that  it  was  only  in  the  privacy  of  their 
own  home,  or  surrounded  by  female  disciples, 
that  they  gave  utterance  to  the  words  which 
came  from  their  lips,  instinct  with  a  divine 
power ;  it  is  possible  that  their  character  as 
''virgins"  {i.e.  not  merely  unmarried  women, 


The  Epistle  to  Thyatira.  141 

but  consecrated  to  a  ministerial  life)  gained  for 
them  exceptional  privileges  ;  it  is  possible,  lastly, 
that  the  Apostolic  Churches  were  not  bound  by 
any  uniform  code  of  rules  and  rubrics,  and  that 
that  of  Csesarea  had  not  as  yet  adopted  the 
regulation  which  was  binding  on  the  Churches 
founded  by  St.  Paul. 

What  we  have  to  deal  with,  in  any  case,  in 
the  Church  of  Thyatira  is  the  assumption,  on  the 
part  of  some  conspicuous  woman,  possibly,  as 
has  been  said,  the  wife  of  the  Bishop  or  Angel 
of  the  Church,  of  the  character  of  a  prophetess, 
supported  by  the  phenomena  that  simulated 
inspiration,  and  that  her  utterances  were  used 
to  support  the  twofold  errors  of  the  Nicolaitanes 
and  the  followers  of  Balaam,  *'  to  teach  and  to 
seduce "  the  servants  of  Christ  **  to  commit 
fornication,  and  to  eat  things  sacrificed  to  idols. "" 
The  name  of  Jezebel,  the  representative  of  the 
Zidonian  worship  which  had  tainted  the  life 
of  Israel  with  its  impurities,  was  used,  as 
that  of  Balaam  had  been,  to  point  the  sharp- 
ness of  the  rebuke,  possibly  with  a  special 
reference  to  the  memorable  scene  when  she, 
with  unveiled  face,  and  the  brightness  of  her 
eyes  heightened  with  the  kohl  of  Eastern  cos- 
metics, looked  out  of  her  palace  window  to  try 
for  the  last  time  her  powers  of  fascination,  or,  if  "^ 


142  The  Epistle  to  Tkyatira. 

those  failed,  of  defiance,  on  the  advancing  con- 
queror and  avenger  (2  Kings  ix.  30).  It  would 
hardly  be  at  variance  with  what  we  know  of 
the  workings  of  the  unrestrained  orgiastic 
impulse  at  other  times  and  in  other  countries 
(as,  e,g.,  in  the  Bacchanalia,  of  which  Livy, 
xxxix.  8-19,  gives  so  terrible  a  description)  to 
assume  that  the  words  of  verse  22  were  literally 
true ;  and  that  here  too  the  Agapse,  or  love- 
feasts  of  the  Chistian  Church,  were  stained,  as 
the  hints  in  2  Peter  ii.  13,  14,  and  Jude,  verse  12, 
not  obscurely  intimate,  with  the  perpetration 
of  fathomless  impurities  in  which  this  so-called 
prophetess  was  herself  a  sharer. 

The  words  of  threatening  that  follow  on  the 
statement  of  the  guilt  were  not  less  distinctly 
personal  in  their  character.  As  the  incestuous 
adulterer  at  Corinth  was  delivered  to  Satan  for 
the  destruction  of  the  flesh  that  the  spirit  might 
be  saved  in  the  day  of  the  Lord  (i  Cor.  v.  5)  ; 
as  those  who  polluted  the  Supper  of  the  Lord  with 
riotous  excess  received  not  only  the  just  reward, 
but  the  natural  fruit  of  their  sin,  in  sickness  and 
in  death  (i  Cor.  xi.  30),  so  it  was  here.  The 
penal  discipline  of  sickness  was  needed  to  wake 
up  the  self-blinded  prophetess  to  perceive  the 
real  character  of  the  evil  into  which  she  had 
plunged;    and    she   was    to   be    '^  cast  into    the 


The  Epistle  to   Thy  at  ir a.  143 

bed "  of  pain  and  weariness ;  and  those  that 
were  sharers  in  her  guilt  into  "  great  tribu- 
lation," while  ^'her  children''  were  to  be  "slain 
with  death."  The  received  explanation  of  the 
last  clause  is  that  the  "  children  "  of  the  false 
prophetess  were  her  followers  and  supporters ; 
and  for  those  who  maintain  the  impersonal 
character  of  the  woman  Jezebel,  as  representing 
a  wild  heretical  sect,  such  an  interpretation  is, 
of  course,  at  once  natural  and  inevitable.  It  is 
hard,  however,  to  distinguish,  on  this  hypo- 
thesis, between  the  "children"  and  "those  that 
commit  fornication  with  her"  in  their  different 
degrees  of  complicity  ;  and,  on  the  whole,  I  see 
no  reason  for  abandoning  the  literal  meaning 
even  here.  The  writers  of  the  New  Testament 
recognised,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  events  of 
life  a  divine  order,  sometimes  a  divine  inter- 
position ;  and  as  the  death  of  the  child  of  sin 
had  been  the  appropriate  penalty  of  David's 
great  transgression  (2  Sam.  xii.  14),  so  it  might 
be  here.  The  loss  of  "  the  desire  of  her  eyes," 
the  death  of  the  children  who  were  the  issue  of 
her  shameless  life,  was  to  be  the  sharpest  pang 
in  the  penal  discipline  that  was  to  come  on  her; 
and,  stript  and  bare  of  all  that  once  made  the 
joy  of  life,  weary  and  sick,  without  the  smiles 
of  children  round  her,  the  false  prophetess  was 


144  ^^^  Epistle  to  Thyatira. 

to  await  her  end.  So  should  all  the  Churches 
know  that  the  Lord  was  "  he  which  searcheth 
the  hearts  and  reins,'"  discerning  all  the  base- 
ness and  impurity  which  were  clothed  with 
the  high-sounding  swelling  words  of  know- 
ledge, wisdom,  freedom  ;  that,  though  the  long- 
suffering  of  God  may  in  many  cases  reserve 
the  execution  of  his  sentence  till  the  term 
of  probation  is  over,  there  are  yet  others  in 
which  the  sins  of  men  bring  on  themselves 
a  swift  destruction,  and  that  they  which  sow 
to  the  flesh  shall  of  the  flesh  reap  corruption. 

Another  characteristic  feature  of  the  false 
teaching  of  these  early  Gnostics  appears  in  the 
words  that  follow.  They  boasted  that  they 
alone  had  the  courage  and  the  power  to  know 
the  "  depths  of  Satan."  The  peculiar  addition, 
"^5  they  say''  indicates  that  the  phrase  was 
one  in  frequent  use  among  them,  and  it  throws 
light  on  the  relation  in  which  they  stood  to  the 
great  teachers  of  the  Apostolic  Church.  Here, 
as  in  the  matter  of  eating  things  sacrificed  to 
idols,  they  were  caricaturing  and  perverting  the 
language  of  St.  Paul.  From  him,  after  he  had 
tracked  the  mysterious  working  of  the  divine 
love  in  permitting  evil  for  the  sake  of  a  greater 
good,  had  burst  the  rapturous  cry,  "Oh,  the 
depth   of  the  riches  both    of    the   wisdom    and 


The  Epistle  to   Thyati7^a.  145 

knowledge  of  God"  (Rom.  xi.  33).  He,  in 
contemplating  the  glory  which  eye  had  not 
seen,  nor  ear  heard,  but  which  God  had  revealed 
by  his  Spirit,  had  spoken  of  that  Spirit  thus 
working  in  man  as  one  that  "  searcheth  all 
things,  even  the  deep  things  of  God  "  (i  Cor.  ii. 
10).  It  was,  in  the  nature  of  things,  probable 
that  those  who  claimed  a  prophetic  inspiration, 
shewing  itself  in  a  higher  form  of  knowledge 
than  that  which  was  given  to  others,  should 
take  up  a  phrase  so  congenial  to  their  boastful 
claims,  and  talk  much  of  their  acquaintance 
with  the  "  depths  of  God."  If  their  boasts 
were  limited  to  that  knowledge,  we  must  see  in 
the  startling  phrase  the  "  depths  of  Satan,'" 
the  stern  irony  of  condemnation.  Their  fancied 
knowledge  of  the  mysteries  of  the  Divine 
Nature,  obtained  by  a  deliberate  transgression 
of  every  divine  commandment,  did  but  bring 
them  nearer  to  that  Satanic  nature,  in  which 
knowledge  without  holiness  was  seen  in  its 
highest  power.  As  those  who  called  themselves 
Jews  were  of  ^' the  synagogue  of  Satan,'"  2l^ 
those  who  boasted  of  their  freedom  were 
themselves  the  servants  of  corruption,  so 
was  it  here.  Every  step  they  took  that 
led  them  further  into  the  depths  of  a  mystic 
impurity  did  but  identify  them  with  that  Power 
II 


146  The  Epistle  to  Thyatira. 

of  evil  which  Christ  had  come  to  conquer 
and  destroy.  It  is  possible,  however,  and  the 
position  of  the  words  ^^  as  they  say''  renders 
it  even  probable,  that  their  dark  imaginings 
carried  them  even  to  the  literal  utterance  of  the 
words  which  are  put,  as  it  were,  into  their  lips. 
We  cannot  conquer  Satan,  they  may  have 
said,  so  long  as  we  are  ignorant  of  any  of  his 
devices :  we  must  enlarge  the  range  of  our 
experience  till  we  have  fathomed  the  depths 
of  evil  and  emerged  from  them  uninjured; 
we  must  shew  that  though  the  body  may  be 
"^sharer  in  all  that  men  count  impure,  it  may 
yet  leave  the  spirit  with  a  clear  and  unclouded 
vision  of  the  things  of  God.  That  form  of 
Antinomianism  has  too  many  parallels  in  the 
history  of  human  error  for  us  to  think  it  in- 
credible that  it  should  have  appeared  in  a  soil 
so  fruitful  in  all  strange  dreams  of  morbid 
fancy  as  that  of  the  Asiatic  Churches ;  and 
we  need  not  wonder  if  a  delusion  to  which  the 
language,  though  not  the  life,  even  of  a  Luther 
at  times  drew  perilously  near,  which  has  been 
the  leading  idea  of  life  to  not  a  few  of  the 
world's  greatest  poets,  exercised  its  horrible 
fascination  when  it  came  from  the  lips  of  the 
false  prophetess  of  Thyatira. 

As  the  word  "  depth  "  gave  us  the  key  to  the 


The  Epistle  to  Thyatira.  147 

meaning  of  this  part  of  the  Message,  so  does 
the  word  "  burden  "  to  that  of  the  part  which 
follows  :  "7  will  put  upon  you  none  other  burden 
but  that  which  ye  have  already ;  hold  fast  till 
I  come.'"  The  Apostle  hears  from  his  Lord  the 
echo  of  that  decree  to  which  he  had  once 
been  a  consenting  party.  "  It  seemed  good 
to  the  Holy  Ghost  and  to  us  to  lay  upon  you 
no  greater  burden  than  these  necessary  things  " 
(Acts.  XV.  28).  They  might  ask,  as  they 
heard  this  reproof  of  the  freedom  and  the 
license  which  they  claimed  as  boasting  to  be 
the  true  representatives  of  St.  Paul's  teaching, 
more  Pauline  than  St.  Paul  himself,  ''  Are 
we  then  to  be  brought  once  again  under  the 
yoke  of  bondage  ?  Is  the  Law,  with  all  its 
restraints  and  prohibitions,  to  be  once  more 
the  code  of  the  Church  of  Christ  ?  "  To  such 
questions  the  words  which  the  Seer  wrote  sup- 
plied the  answer:  "No;  that  which  you  once 
welcomed  as  the  great  charter  of  your  freedom 
has  not  been  cancelled.  You  may  have  all 
the  liberty  which  it  permits.  No  other  burden 
is  to  be  imposed  upon  you — neither  circum- 
cision, nor  that  which  circumcision  implies. 
But  that  charter  contained,  in  precise  terms, 
the  command  to  abstain  from  eating  things 
sacrificed  to  idols,  and  from  fornication ;  and 
II* 


148  The  Epistle  to   Thyatira, 

these  rules  of  life  are  still  binding,  as  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  mind  of  Christ ;  the  first 
as  resting  on  the  duty  of  witnessing  for  Christ, 
and  the  second  as  founded  on  the  eternal  law 
of  purity.  Keep  that  fast  through  all  trials 
and  temptations  till  I  come,  and  then  he  that 
overcometh  shall  receive  his  due  reward." 

The  nature  of  that  reward  in  this  instance 
is  described  in  terms  of  singular  grandeur : 
"i"  will  give  him  authority  [i^ovala,  the  might 
of  right,  not  BuvafjLCf;,  the  right  of  might]  over 
the  Gentiles,  and  he  shall  guide  them  ^  [ttoc- 
fiavec,  shall  do  a  shepherd's  work]  with  a  rod  of 
iron;  as  the  vessels  of  a  potter  shall  they  be 
broken  in  pieces,  even  as  I  have  received  of  my 
Father.''  The  promise  is  nothing  less  than 
that  the  faithful  victor  shall  be  a  sharer  in  the 
sovereignty  of  the  Anointed  King,  as  described 
in  the  great  Messianic  prophecy  of  Psa.  ii.  9. 
There  is,  we  cannot  but  believe,  the  same 
special  adaptation  in  this  case,  as  in  the 
others,  of  the  promised  reward  to  the  peculiar 
circumstances  of  the  conflict.     That  to  which 

*  The  use  of  the  word  in  the  LXX.  Version  of  Psa.  ii.  seems, 
in  the  first  instance,  to  have  been  merely  a  mistranslation  resting 
on  a  false  etymology  of  the  word  which  in  the  Authorized 
Version  is  rendered  "shalt  break  them."  Here,  however,  and 
in  Rev.  xii.  5,  as  in  so  many  other  passages,  the  writer  adopts 
the  LXX.  Version  without  any  hesitation. 


The  Epistle  to   Thyatira.  149 

the  disciples  were  tempted  was  an  undue  com- 
pliance with  the  customs  of  the  Heathen  as 
such.  Their  fear  of  offending  them,  their  re- 
luctance to  confess  before  them  that  they  were 
worshippers  of  the  Crucified,  was  bringing 
them  into  bondage.  And  therefore  they  were 
told  that  he  who  resisted  that  temptation 
should  take  his  true  position,  as  being  over 
those  Heathen ;  should,  in  the  great  mani- 
festation of  the  Kingdom,  share  in  his  Lord's 
rule  of  righteous,  and  therefore  inflexible, 
severity ;  that  then  all  the  power  and  might 
of  the  Heathen  that  continued  hostile  to  the 
Divine  Kingdom  should,  like  vessels  of  the 
potter  not  made  to  honour,  be  crushed  to 
pieces.^ 

And,  lastly,  there  was  the  yet  more  mys- 
terious promise,  "7  will  give  unto  him  the 
morning  star.''  As  with  the  manna,  and  with 
the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  life,  so  also  here,  that 
which  the  Lord  holds  forth  as  the  supreme 
and    crowning  blessing  is  the  gift  of   Himself,  V 

^  The  argument  used  by  Polycarp  in  dealing  with  the  case 
already  referred  to  presents  a  singular  agreement  with  this  pas- 
sage:  "Si  quis  non  abstinuerit  se  ab  avaritia  [i.e.  as  above, 
nXtovt^ia,  in  its  secondary  sense  of  impurity]  ab  idololatria 
coinquinabitur  et  tanquam  inter  gentes  judicabitur.  Quis  autem 
ignoret  judicium  Domini?  An  nescimus  quia  sancti  mundum 
judicabunt  sicut  Paulus  docet." — {Epist.  ad  Phil.  c.  xi. ) 


150  The  Epistle  to  Thyatira. 

/  the  fruition  of  His  glorious  presence.  The  title 
of  the  "  bright  and  morning  star  "  is  claimed 
by  Him  at  the  close  of  the  Apocalypse  as 
belonging  to  Himself  as  "  the  root  and  the 
offspring  of  David"  (xxii.  16).  And  when  He 
gives  that  star  He  gives  Himself.  Each 
symbol  represents  obviously  a  special  aspect 
of  that  Divine  presence.  And  the  star  had 
of  old  been  the  received  emblem  of  sovereignty. 
Balaam  had  seen  *'  a  Star  coming  out  of  Jacob, 
and  a  Sceptre  rising  out  of  Judah "  (Num. 
xxiv.  17);  and  the  Magi  of  the  East,  seeing 
the  star,  set  forth  to  w^orship  Him  who  was 
born  King  of  the  Jews  (Matt.  ii.  2).  It  was 
the  symbol  of  sovereignty  on  its  brighter  and 
benignant  side,  and  was  therefore  the  fitting 
and  necessary  complement  of  the  dread  attri- 
butes that  had  gone  before.  The  King  came 
not  only  to  judge,  and  punish,  and  destroy,  but 
also  to  illumine  and  to  cheer.  He  was  to  be 
as  the  day-spring  from  on  high,  giving  light  to 
those  that  were  in  darkness  and  in  the  shadow 
of  death  (Luke  i.  78).  All  lower  gifts  of  pro- 
phecy or  knowledge  were  but  as  one  of  the  lights 
of  earth,  as  lamp,  or  torch,  or  candle,  shining 
in  a  dark  and  squalid  place  where  they  did  but 
make  the  darkness  visible  (2  Pet.  i.  19),  but 
when    the    day-star    (^wo-c/xjpo?,    Lucifer,    the 


The  Epistle  to  Thyatira.  151 

light-bringer)  should  arise  in  their  hearts,  men 
would  rejoice  in  the  fulness  of  its  radiance. 
The  gift  of  the  morning  star  is  therefore  the 
gift  of  that  attribute  of  sovereignty  no  less  than 
of  its  judicial  and  penal  majesty.  The  con- 
queror in  the  great  strife  should  receive  light 
in  its  fulness  and  transmit  that  light  to  others 
— and  so  should  take  his  place  among  those 
that  turn  many  to  righteousness,  and  '*  shall 
shine  as  the  stars"  for  ever  (Dan.  xii.  3). 


VI. 
THE  EPISTLE  TO  SARDIS. 


THE  REVELATION. 

CHAPTER   III. 

1  And  unto  the  angel  of  the  church  in  Sardis  write  ;  These  things 
saith  he  that  hath  the  seven  Spirits  of  God,  and  the  seven  stars  ;  I 
know  thy  works,  that  thou  hast  a  name  that  thou  Uvest,  and  art 
dead. 

2  Be  watchful,  and  strengthen  the  things  which  remain,  that  are 
ready  to  die  :  for  I  have  not  found  thy  works  perfect  before  God. 

3  Remember  therefore  how  thou  hast  received  and  heard,  and 
hold  fast,  and  repent.  If  therefore  thou  shalt  not  watch,  I  will 
eome  on  thee  as  a  thief,  and  thou  shalt  not  know  what  hour  I  will 
come  upon  thee. 

4  Thou  hast  a  few  names  even  in  Sardis  which  have  not  defiled 
their  garments  ;  and  they  shall  walk  with  me  in  white  :  for  they  are 
worthy. 

5  He  that  overcoineth,  the  same  shall  be  clothed  in  white 
raiment  ;  and  I  will  not  blot  out  his  name  out  of  the  book  of  life, 
but  I  will  confess  his  name  before  my  Father,  and  before  his 
angels. 

6  He  that  hath  an  ear,  let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit  saith  unto 
the  churches. 


VI. 

IF  the  secular  history  of  an  Asiatic  city  had 
any  legitimate  connection  with  the  inter- 
pretation of  these  Epistles,  few  names  would 
offer  a  field  of  wider  interest  to  the  expositor 
than  that  ancient  capital  of  the  old  Lydian 
monarchy  through  whose  agora  flowed  the 
Pactolus  with  its  golden  sands ;  which  was 
famed,  in  its  remote  past,  at  once  for  its  manu- 
factures and  its  coinage  ;  whose  name  recalls 
the  old  tales,  half  mythical,  half  historical, 
of  Gyges  and  of  Croesus.  It  preceded  Miletus 
and  Thyatira  in  the  fame  of  its  purple  dye,  and 
Corinth  in  that  of  its  bronze,  or  compound 
metal  known  as  electrum.  Following  in  the 
track,  however,  of  the  method  I  have  hitherto 
pursued,  I  cast  but  a  passing  glance  at  these 
external  facts  and  seek  rather  to  ascertain, 
as  far  as  may  be,  what  was  its  actual  state 
at  the  time  when  the  Apostle's  mind  was  turned 
to  its  perils  and  its  privileges,  in  his  Patmos 
exile.  The  one  event  which  then,  probably, 
most   influenced    its  condition   was   the   great 


156  The  Epistle  to  Sardis. 

earthquake  that  had  laid  it  waste  in  the  reign 
of  Tiberius  (a.d.  17),  and  had  been  followed 
by  a  desolating  pestilence.  From  this,  how- 
ever, the  population  had  sufficiently  recovered 
a  few  years  later  to  be  among  the  candidates 
for  the  honour  of  erecting  a  temple  to  the 
Emperor,  who  had  then  come  to  their  aid  ;  and 
at  the  time  of  the  Apocalypse  it  was  probably 
a  fairly  flourishing  community.  Its  dominant 
worship,  to  judge  by  the  ruins  of  the  stately 
temple  that  still  remain,  was  that  of  the  great 
mother-goddess  Cybele ;  and  that  worship, 
it  will  be  remembered,  with  its  eunuch  priest- 
hood and  its  orgiastic  rites,  was  one  which 
tended,  as  much  almost  as  that  of  Dionysos 
or  Aphrodite,  to  sins  of  a  foul  and  dark  im- 
purity. In  the  midst  of  such  a  population, 
rescued  from  such  a  cultus,  we  have  to  think 
of  the  small  community  of  disciples  who  were 
addressed,  through  their  Angel,  or  Bishop, 
as  the  Church  of  Sardis. 

Here,  as  before,  we  may  well  assume  that 
the  name  by  which  the  Lord  reveals  Himself 
at  the  opening  of  this  Message — " /f  e  that 
hath  the  seven  Spirits  of  God  " — had  a  special 
bearing  upon  the  state  of  the  Angel  and  the 
Church  to  whom  the  Message  was  to  be  trans- 
mitted.    The  Spirit  was  thought  of,  to  use  the 


The  Epistle  to  Sardis,  157 

later  terminology  of  the  Nicene  Creed,  as  the 
*'  Giver  of  Life "  (to  ^coottolov)  and  of  all  its 
sevenfold  gifts  ;  the  seven  Spirits  of  i.  4  and  v.  6 
were  but  forms  of  that  divine  life  which  He — 
one,  yet  manifold — imparted.  These  He,  the 
Lord  of  the  Churches,  possessed  and  could 
call  his  own ;  for  thus  it  is  that  He  can 
"  quicken  whom  he  will :"  thus  He  can  impart 
the  divine  life,  in  all  its  marvellous  variety, 
to  those  who  stand  in  need  of  it.  And  He 
is  also,  as  in  the  opening  vision  of  the  Seer, 
*^  he  that  hath  the  seven  stars,'"  which  repre- 
sent the  guides  and  teachers  of  the  Church ; 
He  is  able,  that  is,  to  bring  together  the  gifts 
of  life  and  the  ministry  for  which  those  gifts 
are  needed.  If  those  who  minister  are  without 
the  gifts,  it  is  because  they  have  not  asked 
for  them.  The  union  of  the  two  attributes 
is,  therefore,  one  both  of  encouragement  and 
of  warning.  If  each  star  shines  with  its  pe- 
culiar radiancy,  it  is  because  it  is  under  the 
power  and  influence  of  the  seven-fold  Spirit  ; 
if  it  has  no  life  or  light,  and  ceases  to  shine, 
there  is  the  danger  of  its  falling  away  from 
its  place  in  that  glorious  band  and  becoming 
as  one  of  the  '*  wandering  stars,  to  whom  is 
reserved  the  blackness  of  darkness  for  ever" 
(Jude,  verse  13). 


15S  The  Epistle  to  Sardis. 

And  here  both  the  warning  and  the  encour- 
agement were   needed.      Of  the  Angel  of  the 
Church  at  Sardis,  and,  by  impHcation,  of  the 
society  which  he  represented,  it  was  said,  "  Thou 
hast  a  name  that  thou  livest,"" — hast  the  shew  and 
the  fame  of  a  spiritual  life — and  yet  thou  ^^  art 
dead.'''     The  cause  of  that  loss  of  vitality  and 
strength  is  to  be  found,  we  may  believe,  in  the 
absence,  in  this  instance,  of  the  "  tribulation  " 
and  the  '^ endurance''  which  were  so   prominent 
in  the  judgment  passed  on  the  works  of  other 
Churches.      The     members     of    the     Sardian 
Church  had  not  been  tried  in  the  fire  of  ad- 
versity ;  life  had  not  been  braced  and  strength- 
ened  by  the    conflict   with    persecution :    men 
had  been  content  with  "  works  "  of  a  lower  and 
less  noble  kind,  occasional  acts  of  charity,  the 
routine  of  decent  conduct.     There  had  been  no 
open    scandals ;    Sardis    was    still    recognised 
by  the  other   Churches  as    a  living   and   true 
member  of  the  great  family  of  God,  was  even, 
it   may   be,   winning  their   admiration   for  its 
seemingly  energetic  vitality.     And  yet  the  chill 
and  the  paralysis  which  were  the  forerunners  of 
the  end  were  slowly  creeping  in  upon  its  life  ; 
death,  not  life,  was  already  master  of  the  position, 
the  dominant  characteristic  of  the  Church  as 
a  whole,  and  of  its  spiritual  ruler  in  particular. 


The  Epistle  to  Sardis,  159 

To  the  Angel  and  the  Church  that  was 
gliding  into  this  state  of  spiritual  torpor  and 
death  the  command  comes,  ^^ Be  watchful;'' 
become  as  one  who  watches  {jlvov  ypT^jopcov) ; 
rouse  thyself,  and  stand  as  one  who  seeks  to 
cast  off  that  torpor.  The  words  that  follow 
present  a  singular  diversity  of  reading — 
"  Strengthen  the  things  that  remain,  which  are 
ready  to  die "  (a  fjiiWei  airoOavelv ;  or,  which 
were  at  the  point  to  die  (a  efjueWov) ;  or,  lastly, 
**  which  thou  wert  at  the  point  to  lose "  {a 
eyL6eXXe?  airo^dXKetv).  The  meaning  is,  in  all 
cases,  substantially  the  same,  but  the  best 
supported  reading  seems  the  second.  In  any 
case,  the  question  meets  us.  What  are  those 
*'  things  that  are,  or  were,  ready  to  die  ?"  Are 
they  those  members  of  the  Church  in  whom  there 
were  yet  some  signs  of  life,  however  feeble  ? 
or  those  elements  of  life,  Christian  graces  and 
activities,  which  were  not  yet  actually  extinct  ? 
Both  interpretations  are,  of  course,  grammati- 
cally tenable ;  but  the  distinct  mention  after- 
wards of  persons  as  such,  in  the  *^few  names  " 
that  are  singled  out  for  special  praise,  inclines 
the  balance  in  favour  of  the  latter.  The  Angel 
of  the  Church  is  called  to  wake  up  from  his 
slumbers,  and  then  to  strengthen  in  himself  the 
energy,  the  zeal,  the  love,  the  hope,  the  faith, 


i6o  The  Epistle  to  Sardis. 

which  were  so  nearly  dying  out.  In  doing  this 
he  could  not  fail  to  help  the  persons  also  in 
whom  this  flagging  of  all  spiritual  vigour  had 
been  most  conspicuous,  or,  in  the  language 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  to  "lift  up  the 
hands  that  hang  down  and  the  feeble  knees " 
(xii.  12). 

The  reason  for  this  command  is  then  given. 
*'  /  have  not  found  thy  works  perfect "  (literally, 
not  filled  up  to  the  measure  which  God  requires 
of  thee)  *'  before  God.'"  And  then,  as  in  the 
analogous  warning  to  the  Angel  of  the  Church 
of  Ephesus  (chap.  ii.  5),  there  came  other 
words :  "  Remember,  therefore,  how  thou  hast 
received  and  heard.''  Personally  it  was  an 
admonition  to  the  Bishop  of  the  Sardian  Church 
to  go  back  mentally  to  the  time  when  he  was 
yet  a  catechumen  in  the  Christian  Church,  to 
recall  the  steps  by  which  he  then  came  under 
the  oral  teaching  of  apostles,  or  bishop-elders, 
how  the  traditions  thus  received  in  doctrine, 
ethics,  discipline,  had  formed  a  complete  and 
consistent  whole  —  how,  afterwards  (here  the 
change  of  tense,  from  the  perfect  to  the  aorist, 
points,  it  may  be,  to  some  definite  epoch  in  his 
life,  such  as  "  the  laying  on  of  the  hands  of  the 
presbytery  "  when  he  was  consecrated  to  his 
ministerial  office)  he   heard,  in  solemn  words, 


The  Epistle  to  Sardis.  i6i 

what  was  the  true  pattern  and  standard  of  the 
duties  of  his  office.'  The  counsel  to  "  heep  "  all 
this  is  identical  with  that  given  by  St.  Paul  to 
Timotheus,  to  "  keep  the  good  thing  which  had 
been  committed  to  his  charge"  (2  Tim.  i.  14), 
to  "  hold  fast  the  form  of  sound  words  "  which 
he  had  heard  from  his  master  "  among  many 
witnesses"  (2  Tim.  i.  13;  ii.  2).  In  doing  this, 
and  in  this  alone,  there  would  be  the  witness 
that  he  was  indeed  "  repenting^'''  not  mourning 
with  a  fruitless  regret  over  opportunities  that 
had  been  lost  and  gifts  that  had  been  wasted, 
but  entering  on  a  new  life  with  new  impulses 
and  new  principles  of  action. 

As  in  the  Message  to  Pergamos,  so  here 
also,  the  exhortation  is  followed  by  a  warning  : 
^^  Except  thou  watch,  therefore,  I  will  come  as 
a  thief,  and  thou  shalt  not  know  what  hour  I 
will  come  upon  thee.'*  Here,  again,  we  have  the 
language  which  we  commonly  associate  with 
the    great    second    Advent    boldly   transferred 

^  It  seeins  right  to  mention  the  deeper  meaning  which  Ewald 
gives  to  the  words  "thou  hast  received,"  as  implying  the  recep- 
tion of  the  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  So  taken  they  would  appeal 
to  an  inward  experience  like  that  to  which  St.  Paul  appeals  in 
writing  to  the  Galatians  (chap.  iii.  2).  I  do  not  accept  this  as 
excluding  the  interpretation  given  above,  but  it  is,  perhaps, 
implied  in  the  words  "  kozu  thou  hast  received,"  stress  being 
laid  on  the  manner,  the  inward  as  well  as  outward  accompani- 
ments, of  the  instruction  that  had  been  imparted. 

12 


1 62  The  Epistle  to  Sardis. 

to  some  nearer  and  more  immediate  judgment. 
The  very  phrase,  *'  as  a  thief,''  implies  a  refer- 
ence to,  and  therefore  the  knowledge  of,  those 
'* words  of  the  Lord  Jesus"  in  which,  in  con- 
nection with  the  self-same  command  to  '^waich,'" 
He  had  added,  *'  This  know,  that  if  the  good 
man  of  the  house  had  known  what  hour  the 
thief  would  come,  he  would  have  watched,  and 
not  have  suffered  his  house  to  be  broken 
through "  (Luke  xii.  39),  and  is,  in  fact,  an 
echo  of  what,  through  those  words,  and  the  like 
teaching  of  St.  Paul  delivered  to  the  Thessa- 
lonian  and  other  Churches,  had  become  a  pro- 
verbial form  of  speech,  that  "  the  day  of  the 
Lord  so  cometh  as  a  thief  in  the  night  "  (i 
Thess.  V.  2).  Dependent  as  this  coming  was 
on  the  state  of  the  Sardian  Church  and  its  ruler, 
liable  to  be  averted  on  renewed  watchfulness 
and  repentance,  it  must,  of  necessity,  refer  to 
the  discipline,  at  once  regulative  and  reforma- 
tory,— penal,  yet  not  necessarily  inflicting  an 
irremediable  penalty, — with  which,  in  unlooked- 
for  ways  and  at  an  unexpected  season,  the  Lord 
would  come  upon  the  Church.  Persecutions, 
distress,  the  open  shame  of  being  noted  as 
a  dead  Church,  exclusion  from  fellowship  wdth 
other  Churches,  who  should  no  longer  recognise 
even  its  ^'  name''  to  live — these  should  do  their 


The  Epistle  to  Sardis,  163 

work,  teaching  all  who  were  yet  capable  of  being 
taught,  warning  others  by  the  punishment  of  the 
hardened  and  impenitent. 

In  other  Messages,  as  we  have  seen,  first  the 
good  that  exists  in  the  Church  is  recognised, 
and  then  the  evil  that  had  mingled  with  it  is 
marked  out  for  censure.  Here,  unhappily,  the 
evil  was  dominant,  and  the  sharp  words  of  re- 
buke had  therefore  to  be  spoken  first.  But  the 
Judge  of  all  the  earth,  then  as  ever,  recognised 
and  singled  out  for  praise  even  the  ten  righteous 
men,  if  such  there  were,  who  had  kept  their 
integrity  in  the  midst  of  a  general  corruption. 
*'  Thou  hast  a  few  names'"  (''names"  for'*  per- 
sons," as  in  Acts  i.  15,  but  with,  perhaps,  the 
underlying  thought  that  He  who  speaks  is  one 
that  *'  knows  his  own  sheep  by  name,"  and 
looks  on  each  in  his  own  distinct  personality) 
*^even  in  Sardis,  which  have  not  defiled  their  gar- 
ments.''^ The  meaning  of  such  an  image  lies  of 
course  on  the  surface.  That  which  is  to  the 
spirit  what  the  garments  are  to  the  body  is  the 
outward  form  of  life  which  men  behold,  which 
in  part  expresses  and  symbolises  the  character, 
in  part  hides  from  view  the  nakedness  of  its 
personal  life.  Those,  then,  who  had  not  defiled 
their  garments  were  those  whose  outward  lives 
had  been  free  from  impurity,  who,  in  the  analo- 
12* 


164  The  Epistle  to  Sa^'dis, 

gous  language  of  St.  Jude,  had  kept  that  garment 
from  being  "spotted  by  the  flesh"  (Jude,  verse 
23).  The  same  thought  was,  it  is  clear,  sym- 
bolised in  the  practice  of  the  early  Church, 
possibly  even  a  primitive  practice,  of  clothing 
those  who  were  baptized  in  white  garments — 
the  *'  chrisoms  "  of  old  English  liturgical  usage 
— as  a  witness  of  the  purity  of  life  to  which 
their  baptism  pledged  them.  The  parable  of 
the  man  that  "had  not  on  a  wedding  garment" 
must  have  done  something  to  fix  this  symbolism 
in  the  Apostle's  mind,  and  this  implied  reference 
to  that  parable  helps  us  there  also  to  understand 
the  true  meaning  of  the  symbol,  and  so  to 
eliminate  the  more  fantastic  interpretations 
which  see  in  it  either  the  imputed  righteousness 
of  Christ  or  the  outward  ordinance  of  baptism. 

The  reward  for  this  purity  might  seem  at 
first  to  be  the  purity  itself.  They  who  have 
not  defiled  their  garments  are  to  "  walk  "  with 
Christ  "zn  white,'"  for  ^Uhcy  are  worthy.''  Here, 
however,  it  would  seem,  from  the  vivid  pictures 
in  chaps,  vi.  11,  vii.  g,  13,  xix.  8,  of  the  white 
robes  given  to  the  martyred  saints,  of  those  who 
were  clothed  with  white  robes  which  they  had 
made  white  in  the  "blood  of  the  Lamb,"  as 
if  more  than  this  were  meant.  The  "  white 
robes  "  are  such  "  as  no  fuller  on  earth  could 


The  Epistle  to  Sardis.  165 

whiten  them,"  glorious  and  bright  as  those 
which  the  Apostle  had  seen  on  the  night  of  the 
Transfiguration.  In  other  words,  as  the  reward 
of  the  pure  in  heart  is  that  they  shall  see  God, 
so  that  of  those  who  have  kept  their  garments 
from  defilement  is  like  in  kind  but  more  glorious 
in  degree — a  purity  glorified  and  transfigured, 
pure  even  as  He,  their  Lord,  is  pure  (i  John 
iii.  3).  Of  that  reward  they  are  "  worthy^'"  and 
no  dread  of  scholastic  formulae  of  "  congruity  " 
or  "  condignity  "  need  hinder  us  from  accepting 
the  word  in  its  natural  meaning.  There  is 
a  worthiness,  a  meetness,  when  the  life  prepares 
the  way  for  the  reward,  and  the  reward  is  the 
completion  and  consummation  of  the  life,  which 
we  need  not  shrink  from  recognising,  as  Christ 
Himself  recognised  it,  and  the  very  essence 
of  which  lies,  in  part,  in  the  absence  of  any 
claim  or  consciousness  of  merit. 

In  this  Message,  and  in  this  alone,  the 
reward  of  him  that  overcometh  is  thus  in  part 
anticipated  in  what  precedes  it.  If  there  is 
any  difference,  it  is  perhaps  to  be  found  in  the 
use  of  the  word  Trepc/SaXetrat — he  *^  shall  be 
clothed,''  or  *' shall  clothe  himself,'*  as  denoting 
a  more  solemn  investiture  than  the  simple 
**  walking  in  white."  And  looking  to  the  fact 
of  the    obvious   familiarity   of  the   Evangelist 


1 66  The  Epistle  to  Sardis. 

with  the  prophecy  of  Zechariah,  we  can  scarcely 
avoid  seeing  here  a  reference  to  the  mysterious 
vision  in  which  the  High  Priest  Joshua,  the 
son  of  Jozedek,  stood  face  to  face  in  conflict 
with  Satan,  the  enemy  and  accuser,  and,  having 
overcome  in  that  trial,  had  the  fair  mitre  set 
upon  his  head,  and  was  clothed  in  new  raiment. 
(Zech.  iii.  4,  5.)' 

The  reward,  however,  goes  beyond  this : 
^^And  I  will  not  blot  out  his  name  from  the  book 
of  life,''  The  words  contain  a  whole  mine  of 
half-latent  imagery.  First  we  note  the  special 
appropriateness  of  the  promise  as  given  to  those 
who  were  exceptions  to  the  statement,  too  true 
of  the  greater  part  of  the  Church  to  which  they 

"  I  ought  not  to  pass  over,  though  I  cannot  altogether  accept, 
Professor  Lightfoot's  interesting  suggestion,  in  his  Commentary 
on  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  (p.  22),  that  here,  and  in  the 
parallel  passage  in  the  Message  to  Laodicea,  there  is  a  reference 
to  the  purple  dyes  for  which  both  the  cities,  like  Thyatira,  were 
more  or  less  famous.  The  image  seems  to  me  too  natural  and 
universal  to  require  the  assumption  of  any  such  direct  reference. 
When  we  come  to  the  description  of  those  who  had  * '  washed 
their  robes  and  made  them  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  " 
(Rev.  vii.  14),  the  case  is,  however,  stronger.  We  can  imagine 
the  glance  of  the  Apostle  falling  on  one  of  the  great  dyeing  vats 
used  in  the  staple  trade  of  the  town,  and  seeing  the  linen  gar- 
ments steeped  in  the  crimson  fluid  that  looked  like  blood,  and 
of  his  being  thus  led  to  think  of  those  whose  inmost  life,  steeped 
in  the  spirit  of  sacrifice  of  which  the  blood  of  Christ  is  the  sym- 
bol, should  emerge  from  that  process,  not  "  red  like  crimson,"  but, 
by  the  strangest  of  all  paradoxes,  "  white  as  wool  "    (Isa.  i.  18). 


% 


The  Epistle  to  Sardis.  167 

belonged,    that    **  tlicy    had    a    name    thai    they 
livedo  and  yet  were  d:ad,'^  whose  names  there- 
fore would  be  blotted  out   of  the  book  of  life, 
which  recorded  only  those  of  living  members. 
The  symbolism  was  one  of  the   oldest   in  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures,  and  occurring,  as  it  does, 
for  the  first  time  in  Exod.  xxxii.  32  ("  Blot  me, 
I  pray  thee,  out  of  thy  book  which  thou  hast 
written"),    probably    had    its    origin    in    the 
political  life  of  Egypt.     It  was  a  natural  ex- 
pansion   of    the   thought   that    one   who    was 
convicted    of  treachery    or   disloyalty   to    the 
State  of  which  he  was  a  member,  should,  as 
the   preliminary  step  to  the  execution   of  the 
sentence    of    death    or   banishment,    have   his 
name    struck    out    from    the    register    of    its 
citizens.^     So  in  the  fiery  wrath    of  the   6gth 
Psalm    the    extremest    malediction    is,    "  Let 
them  be  blotted  out  of  the  book  of  the  living  ;" 
and  this  stands  parallel  with  the  clause,  ''  Let 
them   not   be   written  among   the   righteous " 
(Psa.  Ixix.   28).     So  in   Daniel's  vision  of  the 
resurrection,  those  who  were  delivered  out  of 
tribulation   included  "  every   one   that    should 

^  Students  of  Greek  history  will  remember  the  scene  in  which 
Critias,  as  the  prelude  to  the  condemnation  of  Theramenes,  struck 
his  name  out  of  the  list  of  the  Three  Thousand  who  could  not 
be  condemned  except  by  a  formal  sentence  of  the  Council. 


1 68  The  Epistle  to  Sardis. 

be  found  written  in  the  book  "  (Dan.  xii.  i). 
To  this  image  the  Seer  returns  again  and 
again.  All  should  worship  the  Beast,  except 
those  whose  names  were  written  in  the  book 
of  life  of  the  Lamb  (xiii.  3  ;  xvii.  8).  They 
only  should  enter  into  the  holy  city,  the 
heavenly  Jerusalem  (xxi.  27).  The  words  of 
the  Message  to  the  Church  of  Sardis  are  valu- 
able as  shewing  that  to  have  the  name  so 
written  does  not  of  itself  secure,  as  by  a  divine 
decree,  the  indefectibility  of  perseverance. 
Of  not  a  few  it  would  be  true,  the  very  promise 
implying  the  warning,  that  their  names,  though 
they  had  been  written  in  it,  would  hereafter  be 
blotted  out.  The  close  of  the  Message  comes 
as  the  natural  sequel  of  this  promise  :  ''/  will 
confess  his  name  before  viy  Father  and  before  his 
angels."  Here  we  have  in  part  the  distinct  echo 
of  words  which  the  Apostle  had  once  heard  from 
his  Master's  lips  while  He  was  yet  on  earth  : 
"Whosoever  therefore  shall  confess  me  before 
men,  him  will  I  confess  also  before  my  Father 
which  is  in  heaven"  (Matt.  x.  32);  or,  as  in 
Luke  xii.  8,  "  before  the  angels  of  God."  In 
the  connection  between  this  promise  and  the 
names  that  were  written  in  the  book  of  life  we 
may  trace,  I  believe,  a  probable  reference  to  the 
strange  Psalm  of  the  Sons  of   Korah  (Psalm 


The  Epistle  to  Sardis.  169 

Ixxxv.),  which  appears  to. have  been  sung  at 
some  enrolment  of  proselytes  from  Egypt  and 
Babylon,  from  Philistia  and  Tyre  and  Ethiopia, 
among  the  citizens  of  Zion.  There  also  we 
read  that  when  the  Lord  writeth  up  the  people 
— takes,  as  it  were,  the  census  of  the  holy  city — 
He  shall  rehearse,  or  count,  uttering  "  as  He 
counts"  the  names  of  those  who  were  thus  regis- 
tered in  what  the  Prophet  Ezekiel,  at  a  some- 
what later  date,  calls  *'  the  writing  of  the  house 
of  Israel  "  (Ezek.  xiii.  9). 


VII. 

THE  EPISTLE  TO  PHILADELPHIA 


THE  REVELATION. 

CHAPTER   III. 

7  And  to  the  angel  of  the  church  in  Philadelphia  write  ;  These 
things  saith  he  that  is  holy,  he  that  is  true,  he  that  hath  the  key  of 
David,  he  that  openeth,  and  no  man  shutteth  ;  and  shutteth,  and  no 
man  openeth  : 

8  I  know  thy  works  :  behold,  I  have  set  before  thee  an  open  door, 
and  no  man  can  shut  it :  for  thou  hast  a  little  strength,  and  hast 
kept  my  word,  and  hast  not  denied  my  name. 

9  Behold,  I  will  make  them  of  the  synagogue  of  Satan,  which  say 
they  are  Jews,  and  are  not,  but  do  lie  ;  behold,  I  will  make  them  to 
come  and  worship  before  thy  feet,  and  to  know  that  I  have  loved 
thee. 

10  Because  thou  hast  kept  the  word  of  my  patience,  I  also  will 
keep  thee  from  the  hour  of  temptation,  which  shall  come  upon  all 
the  world,  to  try  them  that  dwell  upon  the  earth. 

11  Behold,  I  come  quickly  :  hold  that  fast  which  thou  hast,  that 
no  man  take  thy  crown. 

12  Him  that  overcometh  will  I  make  a  pillar  in  the  temple  of  my 
God,  and  he  shall  go  no  more  out :  and  I  will  write  upon  him  the 
name  of  my  God,  and  the  name  of  the  city  of  my  God,  which  is  new 
Jerusalem,  which  cometh  down  out  of  heaven  from  my  God  :  and 
/  will  ivrite  upon  him  my  new  name. 

13  He  that  hath  an  ear,  let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit  saith  unto 
the  churches. 


VII. 

THE  city  of  Philadelphia,  situated  at  the 
foot  of  Mount  Tmolus,  about  twenty-eight 
miles  south-east  of  Sardis,  named  after  Attalus 
Philadelphus,  King  of  Pergamos,  and  the  centre 
of  the  wine  trade  of  the  region  lying  on  the 
frontiers  of  Lydia  and  Phrygia,  presented,  so 
far  as  we  know^,  the  same  phenomena  of  reli- 
gious and  social  life  as  its  nearest  neighbours. 
There,  too,  there  was  a  population  mainly,  of 
course,  Heathen,  but  including  at  least  three 
other  elements  distinct  from  it  and  from  each 
other — Jews,  Jewish  Christians,  and  converts 
from  Heathenism.  What  its  spiritual  con- 
dition was  we  gather  from  the  Message,  and 
from  that  only.  Three  facts  connected  with  it 
may,  how^ever,  be  briefly  noticed,  as  having 
some  historical  interest,  i.  That,  like  Sardis, 
it  had  suffered  severely  from  the  great  Asiatic 
earthquake  in  the  reign  of  Tiberius.  2.  That 
of  all  the  Seven  Churches  it  had  the  longest 
duration  of  prosperity  as  a  Christian  city,  and 


174       ^^^^  Epistle  to  Philadelphia. 

is  still  a  spacious  town,  with  the  remains  of  not 
less  than  tw^enty-four  churches.  3.  That  of  all 
the  seven  its  name  alone  appears  in  the  cata- 
logue of  modern  cities.  The  meaning  of  the 
word, — "  brotherly  love,"  or  ''love  of  the  breth- 
ren,"— perhaps  also  the  special  character  of  the 
promises  connected  with  it  in  the  Apocal3'ptic 
Message,  commended  it  to  the  mind  of  William 
Penn  as  the  fittest  he  could  find  for  the  city 
which  he  founded  on  the  banks  of  the  Dela- 
w^are;  and  so  it  has  won  for  the  name  of  the 
old  Asiatic  city  a  higher  niche  of  fame  than  it 
would  otherwise  ever  have  filled  in  the  world's 
history. 

The  name  by  which  the  Sender  of  the 
Message  here  describes  himself  is  that  of  "  the 
holy,  the  true,  he  that  hath  the  key  of  David,  he 
who  openeth,  and  none  shall  shut ;  lie  who  shutteth, 
and  none  shall  open.''  Each  of  these  epithets 
has  a  special  significance  and  calls  for  a  few 
words  in  explanation  of  it.  i.  "  The  holy.'* 
The  word  here  used  is,  it  must  be  remembered, 
djio<;,  not  ocrio?,  and  represents  the  holiness 
of  consecration  rather  than  *  that  which  is 
ethical  and  indwelling.  As  such,  in  by  far  the 
great  majority  of  instances,  it  is  used  either 
of  the  "saints"  as  consecrated,  in  spite  of 
manifold     individual    weaknesses,    to     a    life 


The  Epistle  to  Philadelphia,       175 

of  devotion  ;  or  of  the  Temple  and  its  sanc- 
tuaries, literal  or  spiritual,  as  dedicated  to 
God's  service  (i  Cor.  iii.  17 ;  Ephes.  ii.  21  ; 
Heb.  viii.  2  and  passim)  ;  more  prominently 
still  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  sharing  that  other- 
wise incommunicable  sanctity  which  belongs 
to  the  Divine  Essence.  Of  the  person  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  it  is  used  but  rarely.  It  would 
seem,  however,  to  have  been  one  of  the  names, 
more  or  less  accepted  as  equivalent  to  that 
of  the  Messiah,  which  were  current  during  His 
ministry.  It  came  from  the  lips  of  the  Gada- 
rene  demoniac  when  he  uttered  the  cry,  "  I 
know  thee  who  thou  art,  the  Holy  One 
of  God"  (Luke  iv.  34).  But  it  was  not  only 
from  those  lips  that  that  word  had  come  before 
in  the  hearing  of  the  Apostle.  If  we  take  the 
reading  of  all  the  great  MSS.,  including  the 
Sinaitic,  we  find  it  was  the  form  of  the  con- 
fession borne  by  St.  Peter  and  recorded  in 
John  vi.  69  :  *'  Thou  art  the  Christ,"  not  as 
in  our  Version,  "  the  Son  of  the  living  God," 
but,  ''the  Holy  One  of  God."  That  name 
is  now  recalled  to  the  Disciple's  mind  in 
special  connection,  we  may  believe,  with  the 
memories  of  that  day,  but  also,  and  more 
prominently,  with  the  promises  with  which  this 
Message  ends,   every  one  of  which  especially 


176       The  Epistle  to  Philadelphia. 

brings  out  the  idea  of  consecration,  the  ^'pillar 
in  the  temple  of  God,''  the  ''name''  and  the  ''city 
of  God." 

If  textual  criticism  has  helped  us  to  trace 
the  first  of  these  great  adjectives  to  its  source, 
so,  indirectly,  it  suggests  the  subtle  links 
of  association  by  which  "the  holy"  and  "the 
true  "  were  connected.  For  it  was  on  the  self- 
same day  that  the  beloved  Disciple  had  heard 
from  his  Master's  lips,  for  the  first  time,  that 
word  thus  applied,  when  He  spoke  of  Himself 
as  "  the  tnie  bread  that  came  down  from 
heaven."  Whatever  may  have  been  its  equiva- 
lent in  the  Aramaic  which  our  Lord  spoke, 
it  is  a  familiar  fact  that  the  Greek  word 
which  St.  John  uses  {oXtjOlvo^)  w^as  with  him  a 
favourite  and  characteristic  one.  It  expressed, 
more  than  the  simpler  akr^Orj^,  "  true  with 
all  the  fulness  of  truth,"  true  not  only  as 
opposed  to  false,  but  as  distinguished  from  all 
shadows  of,  and  approximations  to,  the  truth. 
So  we  have,  for  example,  the  "  true  light " 
(John  i.  9),  *'  the  true  worshippers "  (John 
iv.  23),  the  ''  only  true  God  "  (John  xvii.  3). 
The  last  application  has  raised  it  almost  to 
the  level,  not  only  of  a  divine  attribute,  but 
of  a  divine  Name,  and  it  is  as  such  that  it 
is  used  here.     The   Lord   who    speaks  to  the 


The  Epistle  to  Philadelphia.        177 

Churches  claims  to  be  holy  as  the  Father  is 
holy,  true  as  He  is  true. 

In  the  words  that  follow  we  have  a  manifest 
reproduction  of  a  passage  in  that  strange  epi- 
sode in  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah   (xxii.    15-25) 
which  contrasts  the  character  and  the  fortunes 
of  Shebna   the    scribe   and    Eliakim   the   son 
of   Hilkiah,   that   was  "over  the    household" 
of  Hezekiah.     While  the  doom  of  shame  and 
exile   was   predicted   for    the    former,    for   the 
latter  there    was    honour    and    advancement. 
"  The   key  of  the  house  of  David  will   I   lay 
upon  his  shoulder :  so  he  shall  open,  and  none 
shall  shut ;  and  he  shall  shut,  and  none  shall 
open."     His  influence  in  the  great  crisis  that 
was  coming  on  the  kingdom  of  Judah  was  to 
be  mighty  for  good.     He  was  to  be  "  a  father 
to   the   inhabitants   of  Jerusalem    and  to   the 
house  of  David."     Here,  of  course,  the  histori- 
cal bearing  of  the  words  falls  entirely  into  the 
background.     And  the  words  are  chosen  simply 
because   they   described,   in   terms   which   the 
prophecy   had  made   familiar,   that    aspect    of 
the  highest  sovereignty  which  was  now  most 
needed.      They   are    not   identical,  it   will   be 
noticed,  with  those  which  described  the  Lord 
of  the  Churches  as  having  the  "  keys  of  Hades 
and  of  Death"  (chap.  i.  ig).     There  He  was 

13 


178       The  Epistle  to  Philadelphia. 

manifested  as  extending  his  sway  into  the 
world  that  lies  behind  the  veil,  the  region 
of  the  unseen  and  spiritual,  contemplated  on 
its  darker  side.  Here,  in  closer  analog}^  with 
the  promise  of  the  keys  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  to  Peter  (Matt.  xvi.  19),  what  He 
claims  is  sovereignty  over  "  the  house  of  David,'' 
over  the  kingly  palace  of  the  Son  of  David, 
over  the  Church,  as  being  the  house  of  God. 
The  right  of  admitting  into  that  palace  of  the 
great  King  is  his,  and  his  alone.  Others  in 
vain  attempt  to  admit  when  He  excludes,  or 
to  exclude  when  He  admits. 

The  next  clause  gives  the  more  immediate 
application  of  the  claim  :  *'  I  know  thy  works  : 
behold  I  have  set  before  thee  an  open  door,  and 
no  man  can  shut  it.''  As  before,  I  take  the 
words  as  spoken  primarily  of  the  Angel  or 
Bishop  of  the  Church  in  his  personal  character ; 
and,  secondly,  of  the  Church  so  far  as  it  was 
represented  by  him.  So  taken,  we  cannot 
doubt  that  the  ''works"  which  the  Lord 
**  knew  "  were  such  as  He  recognised  as  being 
worthy  of  all  praise.  And  the  context  at  once 
determines  the  nature  of  those  works,  and  adds 
another  link  to  the  chain  of  evidence  which 
shews  that  the  teaching  of  the  writer  of  the 
Apocalypse   was,  in   all   essential   points,   one 


The  Epistle  to  Philadelphia,        179 

with  the  teaching  of  St.  Paul.  If  there  was 
any  phrase  which  more  than  another  was 
characteristic  of  the  language  of  the  Apostle 
of  the  Gentiles,  it  was  that  of  the  "  open 
door "  which  we  are  now  considering.  At 
Ephesus  a  *' great  and  effectual  door"  was 
opened  unto  him  (i  Cor.  xvi.  19).  At  Troas 
a  "  door  was  opened  unto  him  of  the  Lord  " 
(2  Cor.  ii.  12).  He  entreats  those  to  whom 
he  writes,  to  pray  *'  that  God  would  open  to 
him  a  door  of  utterance  to  speak  the  mystery 
of  Christ "  (Col.  iv.  3).  So,  in  like  manner, 
his  friend  and  fellow-worker,  St.  Luke,  records 
how  that  the  Lord  had  *'  opened  the  door 
of  faith  unto  the  Gentiles "  (Acts  xiv.  27). 
In  all  these  cases  the  open  door  refers  to  the 
admission  of  the  Gentile  converts  into  the 
great  house  of  God,  the  widening  opportunities 
for  the  mission  work  of  the  Church  which 
the  providence  of  God  placed  in  the  preacher's 
way.  That  phrase  must,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  have  become  current  in  the  Churches 
which  owed  their  very  existence  to  the  labours 
of  St.  Paul ;  and  when  it  came  to  the  ear  and 
was  recorded  by  the  pen  of  St.  John,  it  could 
not  fail  to  recall  the  same  thought  and  to 
signify  the  same  thing.  The  words  which 
came   to   the   Angel  of  the  Church  of  Phila- 


i8o       The  Epistle  to  Philadelphia. 

delphia  were  accordingly  of  the  nature  of  an 
assurance  and  a  promise.  He  was  encouraged 
to  persevere  in  the  work  in  which  he  had 
already  laboured  so  well  by  the  declaration 
that  in  this  he  was  a  fellow-worker  with  his 
Lord,  that  no  narrowing  exclusiveness,  no  bitter 
antagonism,  should  hinder  its  completion,  that 
the  door  had  been  opened  wide  by  Him  who 
had  "  the  key  of  the  house  of  Davids 

And  this  promise  comes  as  a  reward  of  faith- 
fulness in  the  use  of  the  opportunities  that  had 
already  been  granted:  ^^  Because  thou  hast  little 
power y^  and  yet  didst  keep  my  word,  and  didst  not 
deny  my  name.''  The  words  point  to  something 
in  the  past  history  of  the  Church  of  Philadelphia 
and  its  ruler,  the  nature  of  which  we  can  only 
infer  from  them  and  from  their  context.  Some 
storm  of  persecution  had  burst  upon  him, 
probably,  as  at  Smyrna,  instigated  by  the  Jews 
or  the  Judaising  section  of  the  Church.  They 
sought  to  shut  the  door  which  he  had  found 
open,  and  would  have  kept  so.  They  were 
strong,  and  he  was  weak;  numbers  were 
against  him,  and  one  whose  faith  was  less  real 
and  living  might  have  yielded  to  the  pressure. 
But  he,  though  not  winning,  like  Antipas,  the 

*  Not  '■'a  little  strength,"  as  in  our  English  Version,  which  lays 
an  undue  stress  on  the  substantive  rather  than  on  the  adjective. 


The  Epistle  to  Philadelphia.       i8i 

martyr's  crown,  had  yet  displayed  the  courage 
of  the  confessor,  had  kept  the  word,  the 
doctrine,  the  creed,  of  his  Lord,  the  mystery 
of  the  faith,  the  brotherhood  of  mankind  in 
Christ,  which  was,  in  St.  Paul's  language,  the 
substance  of  "  the  word  of  God,"  and  had  not 
been  tempted  to  deny  His  name,  the  name 
of  that  Jesus  to  whom  the  Jews  in  their  frenzy 
said,  Anathema  (i  Cor.  xii.  3),  through  any 
fear  of  man.  Like  the  faithful  servant  in  the 
parable,  he  had  thus  been  faithful  in  a  very 
little  (Matt.  xxv.  23) ;  and  therefore,  as  the 
promise  that  follows  shews,  he  was  to  be  made 
"  ruler  over  many  things." 

The  reappearance  of  the  same  description  as 
that  which  met  us  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Church 
of  Smyrna,  points,  as  I  have  said,  to  the 
quarter  from  which  the  attack  came.  Here 
also  we  have  those  who  "  are  of  the  synagogue 
of  Satan f  that  say  they  are  Jews,  and  are  not,  but 
do  lie.''  So  far  they  seem  to  have  gained  the 
mastery.  Though  resisted,  they  are  yet  the 
stronger  party.  But  the  day  of  retribution  is 
not  far  off.  "7  will  make  them  to  come  and 
worship  before  thy  feet,  and  to  know  that  I  have 
loved  thee.''  Before  long,  in  that  "  hour  of  trial 
which  was  about  to  come  upon  the  whole  world,'* 
in  the  storm  of  persecution  which,  springing 


1 82       The  Epistle  to  Philadelphia. 

from  Heathen  panic  and  suspicion,  would 
involve  both  Christian  and  Jew  alike,  the  man 
who  had  been  faithful  in  his  work  would  be 
courted  as  a  protector  even  by  those  who  had 
been  his  bitterest  enemies.  They  would  then 
bow  down  and  do  him  homage,  and  would 
recognise,  it  may  be  in  the  outward  events 
of  life,  it  may  be  in  the  very  fact  that  his 
power  to  protect  them  would  flow  from  his 
influence  with  those  Gentiles  against  whose 
admission  they  had  so  vehemently  protested, 
that  his  Lord  had  "  loved  him,''  and  would  love 
him  even  to  the  end.  He  who  had  ^^  hept  the 
word  of  the  endurance  of  Christ,''  the  message 
which  bade  him  endure,  even  as  Christ  also 
had  endured  the  contradiction  of  sinners  against 
Himself,  the  word  which  had  passed,  we  may 
well  believe,  into  a  proverb,  "He  that  endureth 
to  the  end,  the  same  shall  be  saved,"  should, 
in  his  turn,  be  "  kept  "  from  that  hour  of  trial 
or  temptation,  the  "fiery  trial"  of  i  Pet.  iv.  12, 
which  was  about  to  spread  over  the  "  whole 
world"  of  the  Roman  Empire,  to  "  try  those  that 
dwelt  upon  the  earth." 

And  now,  as  before,  in  reference  not  only, 
or  chiefly,  to  the  far-off  even^  that  shall  close 
the  world's  history,  but  to  a  nearer  and  more 
individual  advent,  we  have  the  promise  "/  come 


The  Epistle  to  Philadelphia.       183 

quickly.''  The  trial  should  not  be  too  long. 
The  issue  was  not  far  off.  Therefore  ^^  hold  fast 
that  which  thou  hast,""  thy  zeal,  thy  faith,  thy 
endurance,  thy  open  door,  ^Hhat  no  man  take  thy 
crown'' — that  crown  of  life  (Rev.  ii.  10)  and 
righteousness  (2  Tim.  iv.  8)  which  is  reserved 
for  the  faithful  combatant.  The  promise  to  him 
that  overcometh  is,  however,  in  this  instance, 
more  definite,  and,  if  one  may  so  speak,  more 
appropriate,  than  the  simple  crown  of  the 
conqueror  :  "7  will  make  him  a  pillar  in  the 
temple  of  my  God,  and  he  shall  go  no  more  out ; 
and  I  will  write  ttpon  him  the  name  of  my  God, 
and  the  name  of  the  city  of  my  God,  the  new  Jeni- 
salein,  which  coviieth  down  out  of  heaven  from  my 
God,  and  my  new  name."  The  circle  of  imagery 
into  which  we  are  here  brought  anticipates  the 
more  wonderful  and  glorious  visions  with 
which  the  Apocatypse  closes.  There  also  we 
hear  of  "the  great  city,  the  holy  Jerusalem, 
descending  out  of  heaven  from  God "  (Rev. 
xxi.  10).  But  there  are  differences  of  detail 
in  the  terms  of  the  promise  here  which  call  for 
notice,  and  are,  each  of  them,  singularly 
suggestive,  (i)  In  the  vision  of  the  holy  city 
the  Seer  beheld  1  0  temple  in  it,  for  "  the  Lord 
God  Almighty  and  the  Lamb  were  the  temple 
thereof"  (chap.   xxi.   22).     That  which  consti- 


184      The  Epistle  to  Philadelphia. 

tutes  a  sanctuary  in  the  highest  sense  of  the 
word  temple  iyao^)  is  the  presence  felt  and, 
it  may  be,  seen,  of  the  god  to  whom  it  is  dedi- 
cated. So  our  bodies  are  "temples  {yaoi)  of  the 
Holy  Ghost"  (i  Cor.  vi.  19).  So  the  Lord  Jesus 
spake  of  the  "temple  of  his  body"  (John  ii.  21). 
But  in  that  heavenly  city  (itself,  when  we 
analyse  it,  but  the  symbol  of  a  reality  which 
as  yet  we  know  only  in  part  and  through  types 
and  shadows)  that  divine  Presence  is  every- 
where manifesting  itself  to  the  whole  company 
of  the  blessed  according  to  the  capacity  of  each ; 
and  just  as  the  material  universe,  in  its  relation 
to  the  creative  power  and  the  permanent  and 
immanent  energy  of  the  Creator  as  sustaining 
it,  is  the  temple  of  the  Lord  God  Almighty, 
so,  where  there  is  the  presence  of  the  Lamb, 
one  with  the  Logos,  revealing  the  Fatherhood 
and  redeeming  love  of  God,  there  also  is  the 
Temple  which  is  wherever  that  presence  is. 
Here,  however,  in  the  earlier  stage  of  the 
symbolic  apocalypse,  the  mind  of  the  Seer  was 
not  as  yet  ripe  for  that  thought.  It  is  to  come 
to  him  when  he  sees  the  city.  So  long  as  he 
hears  of  it  only  by  the  hearing  of  the  ear,  he  is 
to  picture  it  to  himself  as  having  a  temple 
analogous  to  that  of  the  earthly  Jerusalem, 
with    which    he   was    familiar.      And    in   that 


The  Epistle  to  Philadelphia.       185 

temple  he  that  overcame  was  to  be  made 
"  a  pillar:'  It  will  be  remembered  that  that 
was  a  title  which,  in  its  relation  to  the  Church 
of  God,  had  been  borne  by  the  Apostle  himself. 
He,  with  Cephas  and  James,  had  been  among 
those  who  seemed  to  be  ''pillars"  of  the 
Ecclesia  at  Jerusalem  (Gal.  ii.  9),  sustaining 
the  fabric  of  its  polity.  And  now  he  hears  the 
gracious  promise  that,  as  he  had  been  in  the 
earthly  Ecclesia,  which  was  the  Temple  of  the 
living  God,  so  should  every  one  that  overcometh 
be  in  that  heavenly  Temple.  And  that  position 
once  gained  should  never  afterwards  be  forfeited. 
"  He  shall  go  no  more  outJ"  Here  on  earth  there 
is  to  the  last  the  possibility  of  failure.  The 
surest  guide  may  wander  from  the  right  path. 
The  pillar  may  give  way,  and  need  removal, 
that  the  fabric  may  remain  unshaken.^  But 
there  the  victors  shall  abide  for  ever,  each, 
under  this  aspect  of  the  symbol,  a  column  in 
the  Infinite  Temple,  as  each,  under  another 
aspect,  had  been  as  a  "  living  stone "  in  the 
structure  of  the  temple  upon  earth.  He  that 
had  the  keys  of  the  house  of  David  would  close 

*  It  is  just  possible  that  there  may  here  be  a  local  reference  to 
the  earthquakes  from  which  Philadelphia  had  suffered,  and  which 
may  have  so  shaken  the  fabric  of  many  of  its  temples  that  some, 
at  least,  of  their  pillars  had  to  be  removed  and  new  ones  erected 
in  their  place. 


1 86       The  Epistle  to  Philadelphia. 

the  gates  upon  those  who  were  received  into 
the  Holy  City,  so  that  there  should  be  no 
departure. 

*'  1  will  write  upon  him  the  name  of  my  God.'"  ^ 
So,  in  chap.  xxii.  4,  we  read  of  the  servants  of 
God  in  the  heavenly  city  that  "  his  name  shall 
be  on  their  foreheads,"  and  in  chap.  ix.  4  of 
those  ''  who  have  the  seal  of  God  upon  their 
foreheads."  We  can  scarcely  fail  to  see  in  this 
promise  a  reference  to  the  thin  plate  of  gold 
which  was  borne  upon  the  forehead  of  Aaron 
and  his  successors  in  the  office  of  the  High 
Priest,  and  upon  which  was  to  be  graven,  '*  like 
the  engraving  of  a  signet,  Holiness  to  the 
Lord"  (Exod.  xxviii.  36).  And  so  the  promise 
takes  its  place  side  by  side  with  those  which 
speak  of  the  elect  of  God  as  being,  like  their 
Lord,  sharers  in  a  kingly  priesthood.  Their 
life  of  consecration,  their  fulfilment  of  the 
priestly  ideal  on  earth,  will  hereafter  be  recog- 
nised by  the  consummation  of  that  life  in  the 
heavenly  Temple  in  which  they  have  been  made 
as   pillars,    not    mute  and  motionless  like  the 

'  It  has  been  a  question  whether  the  "  writing  upon  ///;;/,  or  it " 
(the  Greek  admits,  of  course,  of  either  rendering),  refers  to  the 
pillar  as  such,  or  to  the  man  as  represented  by  it.  Probably  the 
frequent  use  of  human  figures  in  the  caryatides  of  Greek  temples 
suggested  the  identification  of  the  two. 


The  Epistle  to  Philadelphia.         187 

columns  in  human  form  of  an  earthly  temple, 
but  living,  moving,  worshipping. 

''''And  the  name  of  the  city  of  my  God,  which  is 
New  Jerusalem,'''  Were  the  thoughts  of  the 
Seer  directed  here,  also,  to  the  prophetic  sym- 
bolism of  the  past,  or  does  the  mystery  of  the 
new  name  belong  entirely  to  the  far  future,  un- 
revealed  to  him  and  therefore  hidden  from  us  ? 
An  interpreter  may  well  shrink  from  speaking 
over-boldly  in  answer  to  that  question  ;  but,  on 
the  whole,  the  analogy  of  the  symbolic  imagery 
of  the  Apocalypse  generally  suggests  the  conclu- 
sion that  the  key  of  the  mystery  is  to  be  found 
in  that  volume  of  the  Prophets  which  was  to 
St.  John  so  inexhaustible  a  storehouse.  The 
new  name  might  be  that  which  meets  us  at  the 
close  of  the  prophecy  of  Ezekiel,  as  the  name 
of  the  renewed  and  glorified  city  which  he  saw 
in  vision,  " Jehovah-shammah'' — "the  Lord  is 
there"  (Ezek.  xlviii.  35).  More  probably,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  both  because  the  name  itself  is  of 
deeper  and  richer  significance  and  because  the 
Messianic  prophecies  of  Jeremiah,  connected 
as  they  were  with  the  proclamation  of  the  New 
Covenant  (Jer.  xxxi.  31),  were  more  prominent 
in  the  thoughts  of  men  than  those  of  Ezekiel, 
we  may  think  of  '' Jehovah-tsidkemi'''  —  "the 
Lord  our  Righteousness  " — which  was,  we  read 


1 88       The  Epistle  to  Philadelphia. 

in  Jer.  xxxiii.  i6,  to  be  the  name  of  the  city  in 
its  glorified  and  transfigured  state,  no  less  than 
of  the  Anointed  King,  as  in  the  more  familiar 
words  of  Jer.  xxiii.  6.  Every  inhabitant  of  that 
celestial  city  would  count  it  his  glory  to  have 
that  name  written  upon  his  forehead,  the  sign  of 
that  completed  citizenship  in  heaven  (the 
TTokLTevfJua  ev  ovpavol^  of  Phil.  iii.  20)  which 
had  been  his  joy  and  comfort  upon  earth. 

Last  and  greatest  in  the  list  of  names  which 
the  Conqueror  is  to  bear  as  the  insignia  of  his 
victory  is  the  ''  new  name  "  '  of  the  Lord  Him- 
self. Here  we  are  reminded  of  the  analogous 
promise  to  the  Church  of  Pergamos — the  "  new 
name,"  though  not  in  that  instance  of  the  Lord 
who  speaks,  but  of  the  disciple  who  has  been 
faithful  to  the  end.     There  we  saw  that  the  new 

*  I  am  unwilling  to  pass  over  without  notice  a  suggestion  which 
I  have  received  from  a  friend,  the  Rev.  W.  Reid,  of  Edinburgh, 
as  to  the  "  new  name  "  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Avhich  is  here  brought 
into  prominence.  Adopting  a  true  inductive  method  of  inquiry, 
he  has  asked  himself  whether  the  Apocalypse  itself  contains  any 
characteristic  name  or  title  that  had  not  been  used  before  or 
applied  to  Christ.  And  he  finds  the  answer  in  the  fact  that  the 
Greek  word  'Apviov,  "the  Lamb,  "is  soused  in  not  less  than  twenty- 
eight  passages  in  this  Book,  and  not  elsewhere.  The  name  is 
raised  to  a  co-ordinate  rank  with  that  of  God  (Rev.  vii.  lo  ;  xiv. 
4)  ;  the  Church  is  the  Lamb's  bride  (Rev.  xxi.  9) ;  the  Twelve  are 
the  Apostles  of  the  Lamb  (Rev.  xxi.  14),  So  used,  the  Name 
gathered  up  into  itself  the  humiliation  and  the  glory,  the  sacrifice 
and  the  exaltation,  the  meekness  and  the  gentleness  of  Christ, 
and  became  in  very  deed  a  Name  which  is  above  every  name. 


The  Epistle  to  Philadelphia.       189 

name  was  the  symbol  of  a  new  and  transfigured 
character,  and  this  may  guide  us  to  a  right 
apprehension  of  the  meaning  of  the  promise 
here.  The  name  is  not  one  that  is  merely 
^^  new''  now,  but  one  that  shall  be  new  in  the 
day  of  the  final  victory.  It  is,  therefore,  more 
even  than  those  two  great  names,  the  "  Word  of 
God"  and  "  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords  " 
(chap.  xix.  13-16),  which  the  Apostle  heard  and 
beheld  in  one  of  his  later  visions.  For  these 
his  own  writings  made  familiar  to  the  minds  of 
men  even  during  the  time  of  struggle  and  in- 
completeness, and  there  was,  besides  these — 
written,  it  would  seem,  not,  like  the  latter  of 
those  two  names,  on  "  the  vesture  and  the 
thigh,"  but  on  the  diadems  that  crowned  his 
brow — another  more  mysterious  name,  seen  but 
not  understood  even  by  the  Seer,  a  name  ^^  which 
no  one  knoweth  but  himself.''  Full  and  rich  as 
are  the  names  of  Jesus  now,  the  Son  of  God, 
the  Son  of  Man,  the  Word,  the  Christ,  the 
King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords,  revealing  what 
we  can  in  some  measure  even  now  comprehend 
and  realise,  there  will  be  in  the  completed  glory 
of  the  kingdom  a  yet  fuller  revelation  of  all  that 
He  is  in  Himself,  of  all  that  He  has  been  to  us. 
Now  "we  know  in  part,  but  then  we  shall  know 
even  as  also  we  are  known  ;  now  we  see  through 


iQO       The  Epistle  to  Philadelphia, 

a  glass  darkly,  but  then  face  to  face  "  (i  Cor. 
xiii.  12).  We  know  not  what  we  shall  be,  but 
we  know  that  we  shall  be  like  Him,  for  we  shall 
see  Him  as  He  is ;  and  that  knowledge  will  find 
its  adequate  expression,  as  before,  in  a  Name. 
And  that  Name  written  on  him  that  overcometh 
will  mark  him  not  only  as  a  citizen  of  the 
heavenly  Jerusalem,  but  as  the  subject,  nay, 
rather,  as  the  heir  of  the  Eternal  King. 


VIII. 
THE  EPISTLE  TO  LAODICEA 


THE  REVELATION. 

CHAPTER   III. 

14  And  unto  the  angel  of  the  church  of  the  Laodiceans  write  ; 
These  things  saith  the  Amen,  the  faithful  and  true  witness,  the 
beginning  of  the  creation  of  God  ; 

15  I  know  thy  works,  that  thou  art  neither  cold  nor  hot  :  I  would 
thou  wert  cold  or  hot. 

16  So  then  because  thou  art  lukewarm,  and  neither  cold  nor  hot, 
I  will  spue  thee  out  of  my  mouth. 

17  Because  thou  sayest,  I  am  rich,  and  increased  with  goods,  and 
have  need  of  nothing  ;  and  knowest  not  that  thou  art  wretched,  and 
miserable,  and  poor,  and  blind,  and  naked  : 

18  I  counsel  thee  to  buy  of  me  gold  tried  in  the  fire,  that  thou 
mayest  be  rich  ;  and  white  raiment,  that  thou  mayest  be  clothed,  and 
that  the  shame  of  thy  nakedness  do  not  appear  ;  and  anoint  thine 
eyes  with  eyesalve,  that  thou  mayest  see. 

19  As  many  as  I  love,  I  rebuke  and  chasten  :  be  zealous  therefore 
and  repent. 

20  Behold,  I  stand  at  the  door,  and  knock  :  if  any  man  hear  my 
voice,  and  open  the  door,  I  will  come  in  to  him,  and  will  sup  with 
him,  and  he  with  me. 

21  To  him  that  overcometh  will  I  grant  to  sit  with  me  in  my 
throne,  even  as  I  also  overcame,  and  am  set  down  with  my  Father  in 
his  throne. 

22  He  that  hath  an  ear,  let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit  saith  unto 
the  churches. 


VIII. 

THE  position  of  Laodicea,  on  the  banks  of 
the  Lycus,  within  a  short  distance  of 
Hierapolis  and  Colossae,  brought  the  Church  of 
that  city  within  the  range,  if  not  of  the  direct 
influence  of  St.  Paul's  personal  teaching,  at 
least  of  that  of  those  who  had  been  taught  by 
him,  and  of  an  Epistle  specially  addressed  to 
it.  If  we  accept  the  words  of  Col.  ii.  i  in  their 
natural  meaning,  the  members  of  that  Church 
were  as  dear  to  his  heart  and  filled  him  with  as 
profound  emotion  as  any  could  do  who  had  not 
"  seen  his  face  in  the  flesh."  To  them,  from  his 
Roman  prison,  he  had  sent  a  letter,  probably 
by  the  same  messenger  that  carried  the  Epistle 
to  the  Colossians.  (Col.  iv.  i6.)  The  question 
whether  it  was  a  letter  exclusively  for  them, 
or  that  which  we  know  as  the  Epistle  to  the 
Ephesians,  considered  as  an  encyclical  letter 
to  the  Asiatic  Churches,  and  reaching  them  in 
due  course,  is  one  which  we  need  not  now  dis- 
cuss.    It  will  be  enough  to  remember  that  a 


194  T^^  Epistle  to  Laodicea. 

letter  written  at  the  same  time  as  those  to  the 
Churches  of  Ephesus  and  Colossae  would,  pro- 
bably, in  the  nature  of  things,  treat  of  the  same 
subjects  and  be  written  in  the  same  tone.  Those 
to  whom  it  was  addressed  would  learn  to  think 
of  Christ  as  of  One  in  whom  dwelt ''  the  fulness 
of  the  Godhead  bodily  "  Col.  ii.  9  ;  in  whom, 
*'  in  the  fulness  of  time,  all  things  were  to  be 
gathered  together,  both  which  are  in  heaven 
and  which  are  on  earth  "  (Ephes.  i.  12),  as  the 
*'  head  of  all  principality  and  power"  (Col.  ii.  10) 
The  names  by  which  the  Message  to  the 
Angel  of  the  Church  of  Laodicea  was  ushered 
in  were  accordingly  such  as  reminded  him  of 
the  truths  that  had  been  thus  proclaimed  by  the 
great  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  :  *'  These  things 
saith  the  Amen^  the  faithful  and  true  witness,  the 
beginning  of  the  creation  of  God.''  It  need  hardly 
be  said  that  this  is  the  solitary  passage  in  which 
the  word,  so  familiar  as  a  formula  of  emphasis 
even  in  the  Greek  version  of  our  Lord'«  teaching, 
so  familiar  also  in  the  worship  of  both  Jews  and 
Christians,  appears  as  a  personal  name  claimed 
by  the  Lord  Jesus  as  His  own.  It  is  obvious 
that  as  it  came  to  the  inner  ear  of  the  disciple 
it  must  have  thrown  back  his  mind,  full,  as  it 
was  to  overflowing,  of  the  words  of  the  prophets 
in  their  old  Hebrew  speech,  upon  the  passage 


The  Epistle  to  Laodicea.  195 

in  which  Isaiah  had  spoken  of  the  new  name  of 
Jehovah  as  the  God  of  Truth  (Elohim-Arnen :  Isa. 
Ixv.  16) .  But  with  this  there  may  also  have  come 
the  recollection  of  the  very  syllables  in  which  his 
beloved  Lord  had  declared  Himself  to  be  "the 
Truth  "  (John  xiv.  6),  lingering  in  his  memory  as 
that  of  "Ephphatha"  and  "Talitha  cumi"  did  in 
the  memory  of  those  from  whose  reports  St.  Mark 
compiled  his  Gospel,  and  leading  him  to  see  new 
meanings  in  the  old  familiar  words.  To  him 
it  had  now  come  to  be  equivalent  (as  in  the 
LXX.  version  of  the  passage  in  Isaiah)  to  the 
word  which  he  elsewhere  uses  in  Gospel  and 
Epistle,  for  the  True  (6  aXr]0iv6<;),  as  standing, 
not  only  in  conjunction  with  words  such  as 
the  true  Light,  the  true  Bread,  or,  as  here,  the 
true  Witness,  but  absolutely  as  in  i  John  v.  20. 
It  is  not  without  interest  to  remember  that  the 
language  of  the  Pauline  Epistles  had  already 
presented  an  approximation  to  a  like  use,  and 
that  in  Christ  the  promises  of  God  were  Yea, 
and  in  Him  Amen  (2  Cor.  i.  20). 

To  some,  however,  among  his  readers  that 
new  name  was  likely  to  be  an  obscure  and 
hard  saying,  and  for  them,  therefore,  after  his 
manner  elsewhere,^  he  adds  the  Greek  equiva- 

^  As  in  the  case  of  Siloam  (John  ix.  7) ;  Gabbatha  (xix.  13)  ; 
Golgotha  (xix.  17) ;  the  Devil  and  Satan  (Rev.  xx.  2). 
14* 


196  The  Epistle  to  Laodicea. 

lent  of  the  Hebrew  name  :  ^Hhe  faithful  mid  true 
witness,''  and  thus  they  were  led  to  the  first  pro- 
clamation of  that  Name,  with  all  that  it  involved, 
in  the  opening  words  of  the  Apocalypse  (chap, 
i.  5).  Both  the  words  are  thus  brought  together, 
we  may  believe,  because  the  Message  that  was 
to  follow  was  one  of  sharp  reproof  and  condem- 
nation. Men  were  to  remember  that  Truth 
had  its  severer  as  well  as  its  more  gracious 
aspect,  and  that  He  who  was  the  "  faithful  and 
true  witness "  of  the  everlasting  love  of  the 
Father  would  cease  to  be  faithful  unless  He 
also  testified  against  the  sins  of  men,  against 
the  lukewarmness  and  indifference  which  were 
shutting  out  that  love.  And  to  this  there  is 
added  the  higher  and  more  mysterious  title, 
"  the  beginning  of  the  Creation  of  God,'"  Here  we 
find  another  striking  instance  of  that  to  which 
I  have  endeavoured  throughout  this  volume  to 
give  its  due  prominence, — the  identity,  in  its 
great  broad  outlines,  of  the  teaching  of  St.  John 
and  of  St.  Paul.  For  not  only  does  the  name 
express  the  self-same  truth  as  the  "  first-born 
of  every  creature  "  in  Col.  i.  18,  but  the  very 
name,  the  Beginning  if]  apxh)^  appears  in  the 
best  MSS.  as  thus  applied  in  Col.  i.  18  in  con- 
nection with  *'  the  first-born  from  the  dead ;  '* 
and  we  can  hardly  doubt,  from  its  use  here,  that 


The  Epistle  to  Laodicea.  197 

it  had  passed  into  the  liturgical  and  devotional 
phraseology  of  the  Asiatic  Churches  of  the  valley 
of  the  Lycus.  The  stress  laid  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Colossians  on  the  inferiority  of  those  to 
whom  the  self-same  name  of  apyaX  was  given 
in  the  other  sense,  of  all  ^^principalities  and 
powers  "  (Col.  i.  16,  ii.  15),  to  the  One  who  was 
the  true  Beginning,  or,  if  we  might  venture  on 
an  unfamiliar  use  of  a  familiar  word,  the  true 
Frincipality  of  God's  creation,  may  account  for 
the  prominence  which  the  name  had  gained, 
and  therefore,  for  its  use  here  in  a  Message 
addressed  to  a  Church  exposed,  like  that  of 
Colossae,  to  the  risks  of  angelolatry,  of  the  sub- 
stitution of  lower  principalities  and  created 
mediators  for  Him  who  was  the  Head  over  all 
things  to  his  Church. 

In  the  absence  of  other  information  we  can 
only  gather  the  state,  outward  or  inward,  of  the 
Church  of  Laodicea  from  the  words  that  follow. 
It  is  probable  from  what  we  know  of  the  city  in 
which  the  Church  was  found,  that  it  was  ex- 
posed, more  than  most  other  Churches,  to  the 
temptations  that  come  from  wealth.  The  trade 
of  the  town,  mainiy  that  of  dyeing,  which  it 
shared  with  Thyatira  and  with  Sardis,  was  pros- 
perous ;  and  almost  alone  of  the  Asiatic  cities 
it  was  able,  without  any  subvention  from  the 


198  The  Epistle  to  Laodicea. 

Imperial  treasury,  to  recover  from  the  effects 

of  an  earthquake  which,  in  a.d.  60  (according 

/       to  the  view  I  have  taken,  but  a  few  years  before 

the  date  of  the   Message  sent  to  it),  had  laid 

many  of  its  buildings  low.     We  can  well  believe 

that  not  a  few  of  the  converts  to  the  faith  of 

Christ  belonged  to  the  wealthier  class,  even  as 

we  find  at  Ephesus  that  there  were  those  who 

were  "  rich  in  this  world  '*  (i  Tim.  vi.  17).   And 

the    temptation    which    then,    as    ever,    riches 

brought  with  them  was  to  take  things  easily, 

to  enjoy  life  and  the  pleasures  which  wealth 

can  buy  ;  to  act  practically  on  the  rule,  "  Siir- 

tout,  point  de  zele,''  when  that  zeal  brought  with 

it  the  necessity  for  self-denial  or  exertion.    The 

love  that  had  once  been  warm  or  glowing  was 

waxing  cold,  though  it  had  not  as  yet  passed 

into  open  apostasy  and  antagonism.  The  Angel, 

or   representative    leader   of  the   Church,  had 

shared  in  this  general  declension,  and  to  him, 

therefore,  the  rebuke    is  primarily   addressed  : 

'^/  know  thy  works,,  that  thou  art  neither  cold  nor 

hot.'*      The  meaning   of  the  latter  word   (the 

Greek  of  which  occurs  here   only  in  the  New 

Testament)  lies,  of  course,  on  the  surface.     It 

denotes  the  temper  of  fervent  love,  a  love  that 

warms  and  animates  the  whole  life,  the  temper, 

we   must  remember,  specially  characteristic  of 


The  Epistle  to  Lao  die ea.  199 

the  Apostle  who  records  the  Message.  In  him 
there  had  been,  at  first,  the  fiery  zeal  that 
marked  him  out  as  one  of  the  Sons  of  Thunder, 
and  made  him  seek  to  call  down  fire  from 
heaven  to  consume  the  village  of  the  Samari- 
tans ;  and  this,  though  it  had  been  purified,  had 
not  lost  its  old  intensity,  and  equally  in  the 
actual  language  of  the  Epistles  (2  John,  verses 
10,  11;  3  John,  verses  9,  10),  and  in  the  tra- 
dition of  his  fleeing  from  the  presence  of  Cerin- 
thus,^  we  trace  the  ardent  spirit  that  alike  loves 
strongly  and  strongly  hates.  The  precise  spiri- 
tual state  described  as  "  cold,"  is,  we  may  well 
believe,  the  exact  opposite  of  this.  It  is  not  an 
equal  fervour  on  the  side  of  falsehood  and  of 
evil,  not  an  open  hostility  to  the  truth,  the 
fanaticism  of  the  heathen  and  the  heretic.  The 
temper  of  St.  Paul  was  not  "  cold  "  when  he 
led  the  persecution  against  Stephen.  It  is  simply 
the  entire  absence  of  any  love  to  Christ  and  his 
cause,  of   even  the  least    enthusiasm  for  any 

^  The  tradition  referred  to  is  given  by  Irenseus  (iii.  3)  as  re- 
ceived by  him  from  Polycarp,  and  is  to  the  effect  that  the  Apostle, 
in  his  old  age,  entered  the  public  bath  at  Ephesus,  and  found 
there  Cerinthus,  the  leader  of  those  who  denied  that  the  Son  of 
God  had  come  in  the  flesh.  On  seeing  him  he  rushed  out  of  the 
building,  before  taking  his  bath,  and  said  to  those  who  were  with 
him,  "  Let  us  flee  from  this  place,  lest  the  building  fall  upon  us, 
for  Cerinthus,  the  enemy  of  the  truth,  is  there  within  its  walls." — 
(Euseb.  H.  E.,  iii,  28). 


200  The  Epistle  to  Laodicea. 

person  and  any  cause,  an  absence  which,  in  the 
former  case,  may  be  the  result  of  simple  igno- 
rance, or,  as  in  Matt.  xxiv.  12,  of  the  presence 
of  an  abounding  iniquity.  The  condemnation 
of  that  state  is  expressed  in  terms  which  startle 
us  by  the  naked  boldness  of  the  imagery  emj 
ployed :  "  /  would  thou  wert  cold  or  hot :  so, 
because  thou  art  lukewarm,  and  neither  hot  nor 
cold,  I  am  about  to  spue  thee  out  of  my  mouth.''' 

That  "  tepid  "  temperature  (not  of  cold  passing 
into  heat,  but  of  heat  passing  into  cold)  was 
that  which  has  as  its  physical  effect  (in  the  case 
e.g.  of  water)  the  sickening  sense  of  nausea,  and 
which  in  its  moral  aspect  causes  in  most  earnest 
minds  a  loathing  that  is  not  roused  by  the  state 
described  as  "  cold."  That  feeling  has,  in  not  a 
few  cases,  found  its  analogues  in  human  utter- 
ances. Men  prefer  an  entire  stranger  to  the 
*'  candid  friend."  The  profession  of  a  dispas- 
sionate attachment  to  institutions,  ecclesiastical 
or  political,  is  often  felt  to  be  but  the  prelude 
to  desertion  or  betrayal.  The  language  of  the 
great  poet  of  mediaeval  Christendom  singles 
out  for  sharpest  reprobation  those  who  were — 

' '  A  Dio  spiacenti  ed  a'  nemici  suoi. " ' 

*  It  may  be  worth  while  to  give  the  whole  passage.     I  quote 
from  an  unpublished  translation  : — 

"Speech,  many-tongued,  and  words  of  dire  lament, 
Language  of  sorrow,  accents  of  despair, 


The  Epistle  to  Laodicea.  201 

And  the  reason  lies,  it  is  clear,  in  the  tenden- 
cies of  such  a  state  to  self-satisfaction  and, 
therefore,  self-deceit.  The  man  who  has  no 
religious  feeling  at  all  may  be  roused  to  peni- 
tence— conscience  may  be  awakened,  and  the 
work  of  conversion  may  begin.  But  the  "  luke- 
warm "  state  is  for  the  most  part  that  which 
is  blind  to  its  own  shortcomings.  It  is  unreal, 
and  sickly,  and  yet  thinks  that  it  is  in  a  true  and 
healthy  state.  As  Mr.  Carlyle  has  somewhere 
put  it,  in  one  of  those  epigrams  that  haunt 
one's  memory,  "it  is  the  hypocrisy  which  does 

Deep  voices  hoarse,  and  hands  in  anguish  bent, 

These  made  a  discord  through  the  dusky  air 
Which  ever  floats  eternally  the  same, 

As  whirls  the  sandstorm  driven  here  or  there. 
And  I,  upon  whose  brain  strange  wonderings  came. 

Said,  '  Master,  what  is  this  that  now  I  hear, 
And  who  that  race  whom  torment  so  doth  tame  ? ' 

Then  he  to  me  :  '  This  wretched  doom  they  bear. 
The  sorrow-smitten  souls  of  those  whose  life 

Nor  foul  reproach  nor  glorious  praise  did  share  : 
Mingled  they  are  with  those  who  in  the  strife 

Of  angels  were  nor  rebels  found  nor  true, — 
Apart  withdrawn  when  wars  in  Heaven  were  rife. 

Heaven,  fearing  loss  of  beauty,  spurned  that  crew  ; 
Nor  were  they  ordered  to  the  depths  of  Hell, 

Lest  to  the  damned  some  glory  should  accrue. ' 

At  once  I  understood  and  saw  full  clear, 

These  were  the  souls  of  all  the  caitiff  host 
Whom  neither  God  nor  yet  His  foes  could  bear." 

Dante,  '■'■  Inferno.'''' 


/ 


202  The  Epistle  to  Laodicea. 

not  know  itself  to  be  hypocritical."  And  it 
needs  therefore  words  of  sharp  warning  and 
rebuke  from  Him  who  searcheth  the  hearts 
and  reins,  or  from  any  who,  having  the  mind 
of  Christ,  can  speak,  as  He  would  have  spoken, 
of  this  inner  baseness.  It  may  be  noted,  as 
tending  to  confirm  the  assumption  that  the 
Gospel  of  St.  John  and  the  Apocalypse  were 
the  work  of  the  same  writer,  that  this  is  the 
fault  which  in  the  former,  again  and  again,  he 
notes  for  special  condemnation.  Those  who  could 
not  believe  are  less  the  object  of  his  censure 
than  those  who,  believing,  feared  to  confess 
the  Christ  "  lest  they  should  be  put  out  of  the 
synagogue,  for  they  loved  the  praise  of  men 
more  than  the  praise  of  God  "  (John  xii.  42,  43). 
Something  of  the  same  feeling  is  seen  in  the 
language  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  as 
to  those  who  '*  forsake  the  assembling  of  them- 
selves together,"  who  need  therefore  to  be 
*'  provoked  to  love  and  to  good  works,"  lest 
there  should  remain  for  them  only  "  a  certain 
fearful  looking  for  of  judgment  and  fiery  indig- 
nation "  (Heb.  X.  24,  27). 

The  underlying  grounds  of  the  condemnation, 
the  secret  working  of  this  tepidity  of  the  soul, 
are  brought  before  us  in  the  words  that  follow : 
"  Because  thou  say  est,  I  am  rich,  and  have  become 


The  Epistle  to  Lao  die  ea,  203 

wealthy,  and  I  have  need  of  nothing,  and  know  est 
not  that  thou  "  (the  pronoun  is  emphatic  in  the 
Greek,  as  is  also  the  article)  "  art  the  wretched 
and  the  pitiable  one,  and  poor,  and  blind,  and 
naked.'"  It  is  clear  that  the  imagined  wealth  \. 
here  is  that  of  spiritual,  not  temporal,  riches.  / 
In  regard  to  the  latter  the  boast  would  pro- 
bably have  been  true,  and  would  have  called 
for  no  such  stern  contrast.  And  yet  it  is  not 
the  less  true  that  it  was  the  possession  of  the 
riches  of  this  world  that  made  the  Laodicean 
Angel  and  his  Church  so  satisfied  that  they 
had  the  riches  of  the  other.  They  took  the  1/ 
*'  unrighteous  mammon,"  not  only  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  ''  true  riches,"  but  almost  as 
a  proof  that  they  possessed  them.  Outward 
ease  and  comJort  took  the  place  of  inward 
peace ;  prosperity  was  thought  a  sure  sign 
of  Divine  approval.  We  cannot  read  the 
history  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  or  look 
around  us,  or  retrace  our  own  experience,  with- 
out feeling  that  it  has  often  been  so,  both 
with  churches  and  individual  men.  Lethargy 
creeps  over  them ;  love  is  no  longer  active  : 
material  success,  multiplied  endowments,  the 
power  of  giving  money  as  the  one  embodiment 
of  love  to  God  or  man, — these  have  been  the 
precursors  of   decline  and  of   decay.      On  the 


204  The  Epistle  to  Laodicea, 

larger  scale  it  has  been  found  hard  to  rouse 
to  energetic  spiritual  action  a  Church  that  was 
threatened  with  no  dangers,  resting  on  an  arm 
of  flesh,  secure  in  the  State's  support.  On  the 
smaller  it  is  equally  hard  to  convince  a  re- 
spectable and  well-to-do  Christian  that  he 
can  be  wanting  in  the  true  wealth  of  love  when 
he  is  ready,  on  occasion,  to  draw  a  cheque 
for  a  charitable  institution. 

The  state  described  was  bad,  but  it  was  not 
hopeless.  The  great  Healer  has  a  word  of 
advice  even  here,  and  the  advice,  though  not 
without  a  touch  of  irony,  would  not  have  been 
given  in  the  mere  scorn  of  indignation:  ""  1 
counsel  thee  to  buy  of  me  gold  tried  in  the  fire ^  that 
thou  mayest  he  rich  :  and  white  garments,  that  thou 
mayest  he  clothed,  and  that  the  shame  of  thy  7taked- 
ness  he  not  made  manifest :  and  anoint  thine  eyes  with 
eye-salve,  that  thou  mayest  see^  The  tone  of  irony, 
of  which  I  have  just  spoken,  will  be  felt,  I  think, 
in  that  advice  to  "  buy,"  given  to  one  who  has 
just  been  pronounced  a  beggar  where  he  fancied 
himself  rich.  Where  can  he  find  the  price  for 
these  inestimable  treasures  ?  The  answer  to 
that  question  is  to  be  found  in  the  words  of 
Isaiah,  which  this  counsel  at  once  calls  to  our 
remembrance,  *'  Ho,  every  one  that  thirsteth, 
come  ye  to  the  waters,  and  he  that  hath  no 


The  Epistle  to  Laodicea.  205 

money ;  come  ye,  buy,  and  eat ;  yea,  come,  buy 
wine   and   milk  without    money   and    without 
price  "  (Isa.  Iv.  i).     And  yet  the  irony  contains 
in  both  instances  the  truest  and  most  gracious 
tenderness.     The  wine  and  the  milk,  the  gold 
and  the  white  garments,  are  beyond  all  price, 
as  measured  by  earthly  standards,   and  there- 
fore they  are  given   freely.      And   yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  they   have,  in  some    sense,    their 
price.     The  man  forsakes  his  earthly  treasure 
that  he  may  have  treasure  in  heaven.     St.  Paul 
counts  the  things  that  had  been  as  his  '*  gain," 
his  fancied  spiritual  riches,  as  "  loss  "  for  the 
excellency  of  the  knowledge  of  Christ  Jesus  his 
Lord    (Phil.   iii.  7,   8).       Lastly,    besides   this 
renunciation    of    unreal   wealth     in    both    its 
aspects,  there  is  a  price  which  even  the  beggar 
can   pay,  when  he  has   found  that  it  will   be 
accepted  by  the  Lord  who  is  so  ready  to  sell. 
He  can  give  himself — can  yield  his  body,  soul, 
and  spirit,  to  be  dealt  with  as  his  Lord  shall  see 
fit,  if  only  he  may  receive  the  priceless  treasure 
which  he  needs.     To  accept  that  discipline  is 
the  counsel  now  given,  and  it  is  implied  that 
it  will  not  be  without  a  sharp  severity.     The 
*'  gold "    which    Christ   will    thus    "  sell "    to 
him  who  seeks  it,  the  treasure  of  holiness  and 
peace  and  joy,  is  that  which  has  been  "  tried  in 


2o6  The  Epistle  to  Laodicea. 

the  fire ;'''  and  this,  as  in  all  like  cases,  implies 
chastisement  and  suffering.  The  "  white 
garments''  that  hide  the  shame  of  nakedness, 
the  true  holiness  of  life  which  alone  prevents 
the  exposure  of  that  *'  inner  vileness  "  of  which 
even  the  saints  of  God  are  ever  painfully  con- 
scious, are  those  which  have  been  made  white 
in  the  blood  of  Christ,  which  symbolises 
suffering.  The  eye-salve,  which  gives  clear- 
ness of  vision,  does  so  (one  may  refer,  if  such 
a  reference  be  needed,  to  the  history  of  Tobit's 
recovery  from  his  blindness — Tobit  x.  8-12)  not 
without  the  pricking  smart  that  clears  away 
the  blinding  or  beclouding  humours. 

Of  the  three  forms  of  discipline  thus  indi- 
cated, the  first  scarcely  needs  any  discussion 
here  ;  the  second  has  been  dealt  with  in  speak- 
ing of  the  Message  to  the  Church  of  Sardis ; 
the  third  is  new,  and  stands  almost,  if^not 
altogether,  alone  in  the  imagery  of  ScriJ^ture, 
and  calls  therefore  for  a  few  brief  notes.  I 
know  not  whether  the  suggestion  which  I  am 
about  to  make  has  been  made  by  any  other 
interpreter,  but  most  readers  will,  I  think, 
answer  in  the  affirmative,  if  asked  whether  they 
remember  anything  in  St.  John's  Gospel  of 
which  these  words  remind  them.  They  will 
recollect    how,   in  one   instance   at   least,    our 


The  Epistle  to  Lao  die ea,  207 

Lord  gave  sight  to  the  blind,  not  by  word  or 
touch  only,  but  by  the  use  of  an  eye-salve,  or 
collyrium,  how  "  he  spat  on  the  ground,  and 
made  clay  of  the  spittle,  and  anointed  the  eyes 
of  the  blind  man  with  the  clay  "  (John  ix.  6), 
and  they  will  not  think  it  strange  to  assume 
that  these  words  must  have  recalled  to  the 
mind  of  the  Seer  what  he  had  thus  himself 
witnessed  in  one,  if  not  many,  instances  (comp. 
Mark  viii.  23).  The  very  state  of  the  Laodicean 
Church  had  indeed  been  described  in  words 
recorded  in  connection  with  that  very  narrative  : 
"  If  ye  were  blind,  ye  should  have  no  sin  :  but 
now  ye  say.  We  see  ;  therefore  your  sin  re- 
maineth  "  (John  ix.  41).  As  in  those  cases, 
sight  came  through  that  which  derived  its 
power  to  heal  from  the  lips  of  Christ,  so  here 
that  which  would  remove  the  spiritual  blindness 
was  the  Power  of  that  Divine  Word  which  would 
make  the  man's  inward  eye  see  himself  as  God 
sees  him,  and  wath  the  smart  of  that  knowledge 
draw  forth  tears  of  penitence  which,  as  they 
flowed,  would  cleanse. 

The  end  of  the  Message  stands  out  in  striking 
contrast  with  the  beginning.  No  other  opens 
with  such  sharp  unsparing  severity ;  no  other 
closes  with  such  yearning  tenderness  and  a 
promise    so    exceeding    glorious.       Something 


2o8  The  Epistle  to  Laodicea, 

there  was,  we  know,  in  the  character  of  the 
beloved  Disciple,  as  seen  in  his  Epistles  and  the 
traditions  connected  with  his  name,  which  cor- 
responded to  that  combination  of  qualities 
that  seemed  at  first  hardly  compatible.  But 
that  something  was  but  the  reflection  of  the 
union  of  the  two  in  the  Lord  and  Master,  into 
whose  likeness  he  had  grown.  Where  the 
highest  love  is,  there  must  also  be  severity,  and 
the  severity  is  a  proof  of  love,  yearning,  pitying, 
and  seeking  to  restore.  And  so,  after  piercing 
as  with  the  sharp  two-edged  sword  to  the 
dividing  asunder  of  soul  and  spirit,  of  the  joints 
and  marrow,  He,  the  Lord  of  the  Churches,  in 
the  gracious  words  that  follow,  pours  in  the  oil 
and  the  wine  that  are  to  cleanse  and  heal  : 
*'^s  many  as  I  love  I  rebuke  "  {i.e.  rebuke  so  as  to 
convict),^  ^' and  chasten.  Be  zealous,  therefore^and 
repent.''  There  is  in  the  Original  a  force  which  it 
is  not  easy  to  reproduce  in  a  translation.  The 
**/"  stands  first,  and  has  the  special  emphasis 
which  always  attaches  to  the  presence  of  the 
Greek  pronoun.  It  is  as  though  he  suggested 
a  contrast  between  himself  and  others.  "  Human 
friends  may  seek  simply  to  please  and  soothe, 
to  speak  sm.ooth  things  and  prophesy  deceits  ; 

^  The  word  is  the  same  as  that  which  describes  the  office  of 
the  Comforter  (John  xvi.  8). 


The  Epistle  to  Laodicea.  209 

but  not  so  with  Me.  I  give  a  far  other  proof 
of  love,  and  so  deal  w^ith  those  who  are  dear  to 
Me  as  to  make  them  conscious  of  the  evil  that 
mars  their  peace  and  keeps  them  from  their  true 
blessedness ;  and  when  that  conscioasness  has 
been  roused,  I  bring  them  under  the  loving, 
though  it  may  be  sharp,  discipline  of  chastise- 
ment." The  comm.and,  ''^  Be  zealous^  therefore^ 
and  repent^''  may  seem  at  first  to  invert  the 
natural  order  of  the  soul's  recovery.  Must  not 
"  repentance,"  the  turning  from  evil,  precede  the 
righteous  zeal  which  is  to  animate  the  true  life  ? 
In  some  cases,  perhaps  in  most,  that  is,  doubt- 
less, the  natural  order.  But  the  inward  life  of 
the  soul,  in  all  its  subtle  workings,  cannot 
always  be  brought  under  these  sharply-defined 
formulae ;  and  here  we  can,  I  think,  recognise 
a  special  adaptation  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
case  with  which  the  great  Healer  was  dealing. 
The  root-evil  of  the  Laodicean  Church  and  its 
representative  was  their  lukewarm  indifference, 
the  absence  of  any  zeal,  of  any  earnestness. 
And  the  first  step,  therefore,  to  higher  things 
was  to  pass  into  a  state  in  which  those  elements 
of  life  should  no  longer  be  conspicuous  by  their 
absence.  "B^  zealous;''  let  that  be  (so  the 
tense  of  the  Greek  verb  indicates)  the  true 
and     abiding    state ;      and    then     (the     tense 


2IO  The  Epistle  to  Laodicea. 

changing  to  that  which  indicates  a  thing  done 
once  for  all)  let  the  first  act  of  that  new  state 
be  to  throw  itself  with  all  its  force  on  the  side 
of  God,  to  repent  of  the  evil  of  the  past,  and 
to  enter  on  a  new  course  of  action  for  the 
future. 

And  then  we  come  to  that  which  Christian 
art  and  poetry  have  alike  made  familiar  to  us — 
the  promise  that  speaks  of  the  love  which  re- 
bukes and  chastens,  the  love  of  the  divine 
Friend  in  all  its  infinite  tenderness  :  "  Behold^  I 
stand  at  the  door  and  knock :  if  any  man  hear  my 
voice  and  open  the  door,  I  will  come  in  to  him,  and 
will  sup  with  him,  and  he  with  me.'* 

The  words  of  the  promise  that  thus  come  as 
the  sequel  to  the  rebuke  are  referred  by  most 
commentators  to  the  imagery  of  the  Song  of 
Solomon,  and  are  claimed  accordingly  as 
sanctioning  the  mystical  interpretation  of  that 
Book.  There  the  bride  tells  her  tale  of  ex- 
pectancy and  joy,  "  I  sleep,  but  my  heart 
waketh ;  it  is  the  voice  of  my  beloved  that 
knocketh,  saying,  Open  to  me,  my  sister,  my 
love,  my  dove,  my  undefiled  "  (Song  Sol.  v.  2) ; 
and  the  frequent  recurrence  of  that  image  in 
the  visions  of  the  Apocalypse — the  "  marriage 
supper  of  the  Lamb;"  the  "New  Jerusalem 
coming  down  as  a  bride  adorned  for  her  hus- 


The  Epistle  to  Laodicea.  211 

band"  (Rev.    xxi.  2),  the  "bride,  the  Lamb's 
wife  "  (xxi.  9) — seems  at   first   to    give  a  high 
degree  of  plausibihty  to  the  view  that  it  is  to 
be  found  here.     I   am  constrained,  however,  by 
w^hat  seems  to  me  a  true  method  of  interpreta- 
tion, to  reject  that  view  and  to  seek  for  another 
meaning.     It  cannot  be  too  strongly  impressed 
on  our  minds  that  wherever  that  image  of  the 
Bride  and  the  Bridegroom  occurs,  either  in  the 
Old  or  the  New   Testament,  it  shadows  forth 
the   relation    of  Jehovah  to    His  people    as    a 
collective  unity,  of  Christ  to  his  Church.     The 
wider  the  induction  the  more  convincing  will  be 
the  proof  that,  however  largely  the  other  idea 
may  have  prevailed  in  the  writings  of  Christian 
or  other  Mystics,  this,  and  not  the  relation  of 
the  individual  soul  to  its  Maker  or  Redeemer,  is 
throughout  Scripture  the  truth  shadowed  forth 
in  all  bridal  and  nuptial  parables.    But  here  the 
promise   is   distinctly  personal,   and  describes, 
under  whatever  figure,  that  which  belongs  to  the 
living  individual  experience  of  a  joy  with  which 
a  stranger  doth  not  intermeddle.      There  is  no 
picture  here  of  the  bride  tarrying  for  her  spouse. 
That  which  is  brought  so  vividly  before  us  is 
the  arrival  of  a  guest  at  night,  of  a  guest  who 
comes  to  cheer  and  guide  and  comfort.     And 
if  so,  is  it  altogether  an  idle  dream  to  imagine 


212  The  Epistle  to  Laodicea. 

that  St.  John  may  have  had  other  sources  of 
imagery  open  to  him  than  those  which  he  found 
in  books,  however  sacred ;  that  the  memory  of 
his  own  early  years  may  have  been  brought 
back  to  him  by  the  words  that  he  now  heard,  as 
supplying  the  fullest  expression  of  his  Lord's 
communion  with  the  loving  and  trusting  soul  ? 
Remember  how  his  discipleship  had  begun  by 
his  tarrying  where  the  divine  Friend  was  for  the 
time  dwelling,  invited  by  the  words,  '*  Come 
and  see,"  and  there  listening  during  the  long 
hours,  till  day  passed  on  into  evening  and 
evening  into  night  (John  i.  39).  Remember 
how,  in  all  likelihood,  he  was  sharing  in  the 
same  high  blessedness  in  the  lodging  at  Jeru- 
salem, when  Nicodemus  came  to  Jesus  by  night, 
and  so  was  able  to  record  that  marvellous 
teaching  as  to  the  nev/  birth  which  he  alone  re- 
ports, and  reports  with  such  a  vivid  fulness  as  to 
make  it  hardly  possible  to  doubt  that  he  himself 
had  heard  it  (John  iii.  2-13).  Think  of  the  three 
years  of  companionship  growing  into  ever 
closer  and  closer  friendship,  so  that  he  became 
known  to  all  men  as  "  the  disciple  whom  Jesus 
loved/*  of  the  long-continued  intimacy  implied 
in  the  words  which  led  that  disciple  to  take  to 
his  own  house  the  sorrowing  mother  of  his 
Lord,  and  then  ask  whether  such  a  scene  as 


The  Epistle  to  Laodicect.  i2i3 

that  which  this  verse  brings  before  us  may  not 
often  have  presented  itself  in  his  own  actual 
experience  ?  Think  of  the  day's  work  over,  the 
sick  healed  and  the  poor  taught,  and  then  the 
Master,  after  His  manner,  leaves  the  shouts  of 
the  crowd  and  the  stir  of  the  town,  and  with- 
draws into  some  solitary  place  to  hold  com- 
munion with  His  Father ;  and  the  scholar 
remains  in  his  lonely  chamber  in  the  cottage  at 
Bethsaida,  or  the  lodging  at  Capernaum,  watch- 
ing, not  sleeping,  waiting  for  the  return  of  Him 
in  whose  presence  he  found  life,  postponing  till 
then  the  simple  meal  with  which  the  day 
habitually  closed.  And  then,  as  he  watches, 
there  is  the  distant  sound  of  footfall,  and  then 
He,  the  expected  Friend,  stands  at  the  door 
and  knocks,  and  then  the  voice,  so  familiar  in 
its  gentle  sweetness,  though  capable  also  of  the 
tones  of  stern  rebuke,  tells  him  who  it  is,  and  then 
he  rises,  and  the  door  is  opened,  and  the  Friend 
enters.  The  Son  of  Man,  who  had  not  where  to 
lay  His  head,  finds  shelter  under  His  disciple's 
roof :  He  comes,  first,  as  a  guest,  and  sits  down 
to  sup  with  the  scholar,  who  thus,  as  a  host, 
receives  Him  ;  but  soon  the  places  are  changed, 
and  He  takes,  as  it  were,  the  place  that  of  right 
belongs  to  Him.  He  blesses  and  breaks  the 
bread  and  gives  thanks  over  the  cup  of  wine. 
i6 


214  ^^^  Epistle  to  Lao  diced. 

He  is  now  guest  no  longer,  but  the  host.     The 
disciple  "  sups  with  him."  ^ 

This  I  take  to  be  the  outward  framework  of 
the  parable  of  this  verse,  at  once  probable  in 
itself,  and  a  more  adequate  representation  of  the 
spiritual  truths  shadowed  forth  than  any  bridal 
imagery.  What  men  want  is  the  consciousness 
of  the  presence  of  a  friend  that  "  sticketh  closer 
than  a  brother.'*  It  is  better  (the  very  devo- 
tional utterances  which  express  the  opposite 
feeling  being  themselves  the  strongest  proof  of 
it)  even  for  women,  in  their  individual  person- 
ality, to  think  of  Christ  as  the  friend  and  the 
brother,  rather  than  as  the  bridegroom  and  lover 
of  their  souls.  And  now  the  promise  that  this 
blessedness  shall  belong  to  any  one  who  will  but 
claim  it — even  to  one  who  had  been  "wretched, 
and  miserable,  and  poor,  and  blind,  and  naked  " 
— is  given  in  all  its  fulness.  There  is  something, 
we  cannot  doubt,  in  the  inner  life  of  every  one 
who  is  zealous  and  repents  which  answers  to 
the  several  stages  of  the  experience  that  was 
thus  brought  home  to  St.  John's  memory  — 
Christ  ''stands  at  the  door  and  knocks."  Warn- 
ings come  that  either  rouse  us  from  our  slumbers, 
or  fall  on  the  expectant  ear  and  make  us  feel 

'  The  words  rjmind  us  also  of  a  like  figurative  promise  in 
Luke  xii.  37. 


The  Epistle  to  Laodicea.  215 

that  the  Judge  who  rebukes  and  chastens  is  not 
far  off.     Suffering  in  one  or  other  of  its  many 
forms,  unexpected   judgments,  or  unlooked-for 
mercies,  these  tell  us  that    He  is  asking  for 
admission.     If  we  listen  in  the  attitude  of  reve- 
rence and  faith  we  "  hear  the  voice,"  become 
more  distinctly  conscious  of  that  Presence,  not 
as  the  Judge  only,  but  as  the  Friend  who  comes 
to  plead  with  us  and  for  us,  and  so  to  be  our 
Advocate  and  Comforter.     Well  for  us  if  then 
we  open  the  door  of  our  hearts  to  Him,  even 
though  it  may  have  been  long  barred  against 
Him,  and  the  weeds  that    creep  over  it    may 
shew  Him  how  little  we  have  been  prepared  to 
give  Him  entrance.     For  then  it  shall  be  true 
of  us  also,  that  while  we  receive  Him,  He,  on 
His  side,  is  receiving  us.     If  we  invite  Him  to 
share  what  we  have  to  offer  Him  of  that  which 
has  been  indeed  His  own  gift  to  us,  He,  in  His 
turn,  will  call  us  to  His  own  heavenly  feast,  and 
so  even  the  poor  chamber  of  our  hearts  will 
become  thus    honoured    and   glorified   by   His 
presence,  as  one  of  the  "  many  mansions  "  in 
*'  the  house  of  his  Father." 

These  thoughts  serve  at  least  to  prepare  the 
way  for  the  glorious  words  with  which  the 
Message  to  Laodicea  closes  :  '''He  that  over- 
comcth,  to  him  ivill  I  give  to  sit  with  me  in  my 


2i6  The  Epistle  to  Laodicea, 

throne,  even  as  I  also  overcame  and  am  sat  down  with 
my  Father  in  his  throned  It  is,  as  I  have  said, 
the  highest  and  most  glorious  of  all  the  promises 
with  which  the  Seven  Messages  end.  It  speaks 
of  nothing  less,  if  we  may  use  a  familiar  word 
in  a  new  sense,  than  the  apotheosis  of  the  con- 
queror. So,  when  on  earth,  the  prayer  of  Jesus 
for  His  disciples  had  been  for  nothing  less  than 
this,  *'As  thou,  Father,  art  in  me,  and  I  in 
thee,  that  they  also  may  b#  one  in  us ; "  and 
He  had  said  of  them,  *'  The  glory  which  thou 
gavest  me  I  have  given  them,"  and  therefore 
He  could  pray,  "  Father,  I  will  that  they  also, 
whom  thou  hast  given  me,  be  with  me  where 
I  am  "  (John  xvii.  21-24).  The  conquerors  in 
the  strife  with  evil  share  *'the  throne  of  God 
and  of  the  Lamb,"  the  throne  which  is  the  great 
centre  of  all  the  visions  of  the  wider  future  that 
from  this  point  begin  to  unfold  themselves  to 
the  prophet's  gaze  (Rev.  iv.  2;  xxii.  i,  and 
passim).  They  are,  in  some  sense  which  we 
cannot  as  yet  fathom,  made  "  partakers  of  the 
Divine  Nature"  (2  Pet.  i.  4),  sharers  in  the 
holiness,  the  wisdom,  and  the  love,  and  there- 
fore in  the  glory  and  the  majesty  which  have 
been  from  everlasting. 


The  Epistle  to  Laodicea.  217 

And  so  the  Messages  to  the  Seven  Churches 
close.  I  have  not  attempted  in  dealing  with 
them  to  dwell  at  any  length  on  the  history 
of  these  Asiatic  cities  in  the  past,  or  on  their 
present  state,  in  some  instances  of  decay  and 
desolation,  in  others  of  an  outward  prosperity, 
under  the  yoke  of  their  Mahometan  conquerors. 
Whatever  interest  may  attach  to  such  descrip- 
tions they  contribute  little  or  nothing,  I  believe, 
to  a  true  interpretation.  Still  more  absolutely 
have  I  thought  it  right  to  exclude  what  has 
been  called  the  ''  prophetic "  interpretation, 
which  sees  in  the  Seven  Churches,  as  in  the 
seven  trumpets  and  the  seven  seals,  the  sym- 
bolism of  an  historical  sequence,  and  connects 
each  with  some  one  period,  more  or  less  clearly 
marked,  in  the  history  of  the  Universal  Church, 
beginning  with  the  apostolic  age  and  ending 
with  that  which  followed  on  the  Reformation. 
I  entirely  agree  with  Archbishop  Trench  in 
looking  on  such  a  method  of  interpretation  as 
grasping  at  the  shadow  and  losing  the  substance, 
as  leading  to  fantastic  and  arbitrary  applications 
of  divine  words,  and  robbing  them,  in  so  doing, 
of  all  their  interest  and  life.  But  it  remains 
true,  as  I  trust  these  notes  have  not  failed  to 
shew,  that  however  directly  historical  and  per- 
sonal   in   the    first    instance,   these   Messages 


2i8  The  Epistle  to  Lao  die  ea, 

have,  for  that  very  reason,  a  wider  range.  Any 
Church,  at  any  time,  may  look  into  these  pictures 
of  spiritual  excellence  or  decay  as  into  a  mirror, 
and  see  in  one  or  other  of  them  its  own  likeness. 
The  soul  of  each  individual  disciple  may  learn 
to  behold  in  them  his  own  besetting  temptations, 
the  rebuke  or  the  encouragement  which  he  him- 
self most  needs,  the  rewards  to  which  even  he 
may  rightly  and  reverently  aspire.   A 


THE   END. 


165 


UNWIN  BROTHERS.  THE  ORESHAM  PRESS,  CHILWORTH  AND  LONDON 


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